Taxonomy
The French biologist Charles Frédéric Girard published the first scientific description of the horn shark under the name Cestracion francisci in 1855, in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. This species was later placed in the genus Gyropleurodus, which was eventually synonymized with the genus Heterodontus. The specific epithet francisci is a reference to San Francisco, although the range of the horn shark does not extend that far north. The type specimen from Monterey Bay has since been lost. The scientific name for this species has been given erroneously as Heterodontus californicus.
Read more about this topic: Horn Shark