Taxonomy and Phylogeny
The epaulette shark was originally described as Squalus ocellatus by the French naturalist Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre in the 1788 Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique des trois règnes de la nature. The name was later changed to the currently valid Hemiscyllium ocellatum. The type specimen was a 35 cm (14 in) long immature male caught near Cookstown, Queensland, Australia. Other common names for this species are the itar shark and the blind shark (also used for Brachaelurus waddi). Goto's 2002 morphological analysis of the carpet sharks showed the genus Hemiscyllium as a polytomy, meaning that the phylogenetic relationships between the epaulette shark and its sister species could not be resolved.
Read more about this topic: Epaulette Shark