Kitefin Shark - Distribution and Habitat

Distribution and Habitat

The kitefin shark has an almost circumglobal range in tropical and warm-temperature waters, consisting of a number of widely separated populations with likely little interchange between them. This shark has not been reported from the eastern Pacific and northern Indian Oceans. In the northern Atlantic, it occurs in the Georges Bank and the northern Gulf of Mexico, and from the North Sea to Cameroon, including around the British Isles, in the western and central Mediterranean Sea, and off Madeira and the Azores. In the Indian Ocean, it is found off South Africa and Mozambique. In the Pacific, it occurs off Japan, Java, Australia and New Zealand, and the Hawaiian Islands. There is a single record of this species in the southern Atlantic, from off southern Brazil.

An offshore, deepwater species, the kitefin shark is most common at a depth of 200–600 m (660–2,000 ft), but has been captured from the surface to as deep as 1,800 m (5,900 ft). Off the Azores this shark segregates by sex, with females most common around a depth of 230 m (750 ft) and males most common around 412–448 m (1,352–1,470 ft). The kitefin shark inhabits the outer continental shelves and upper continental slopes, and is also found around oceanic islands and seamounts. It is the only member of its family that tends to be found close to the sea floor as opposed to in the middle of the water column, though on occasion it has been captured well above the bottom.