The pygmy shark, Euprotomicrus bispinatus, the second-smallest of all the shark species after the dwarf lanternshark, is a sleeper shark of the Dalatiidae family, the only member of the genus Euprotomicrus. Their length is up to about 25 cm (10 in) for females and about 22 cm (8.7 in) for males.
Pygmy sharks are ovoviviparous and produce about 8 young in each litter.
Famous quotes containing the words pygmy and/or shark:
“Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have often told you that I am that little fish who swims about under a shark and, I believe, lives indelicately on its offal. Anyway, that is the way I am. Life moves over me in a vast black shadow and I swallow whatever it drops with relish, having learned in a very hard school that one cannot be both a parasite and enjoy self-nourishment without moving in worlds too fantastic for even my disordered imagination to people with meaning.”
—Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948)