Abstract

The ragged-tooth shark, Odontaspis ferox, is a circumglobal species inhabiting subtropical and tropical marine waters and is often associated with continental and insular shelves. Although the range for this species is expansive, it is driven by infrequent, isolated observations from disparate regions, resulting in a paucity of biological data. Within the western North Atlantic Ocean there have only been a total of 13 observations of the ragged-tooth shark since first reported in 1989. Through collaboration with recreational and commercial stakeholders we report four new records of the ragged-tooth shark, from the western North Atlantic Ocean and provide additional biological data lacking from this region. Two specimens of unknown sex were caught in the recreational swordfish, Xiphias gladius, fishery in the northern Gulf of Mexico (~225 and ~250 cm total length (TL)), a mature male was caught in the South Atlantic Bight (~200 cm TL) by an angler targeting barrelfish, Hyperoglyphe perciformis, and another mature male was caught in the Sargasso Sea off Bermuda (~275 cm TL) by a commercial fisher targeting Atlantic wreckfish, Polyprion americanus. All four specimens were incidentally caught on rod-and-reel and released alive. The Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic Bight specimens reported herein contribute to the limited number of ragged-tooth shark interactions in these regions while the observation in Bermuda is the first documented record for this locality. These new records highlight the importance of fostering stakeholder collaborations as fishery dependent observations can help provide a better biological and ecological insight of rare and uncommon species.

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