Brownbanded bamboo shark

Scientific name: Chiloscyllium punctatum (Müller & Henle, 1838).

Common name: Brownbanded bamboo shark, Banded cat shark

Thai name: Frog Shark ฉลามกบ, Plong Aoi Shark ฉลามปล้องอ้อย, Cat Shark ฉลามแมว

biology

Brown banded bamboo shark is a small shark that has a long slender body and tail. It has a wide snout at the front of both eyes that its eyes are small. The upper lobe of caudal fin is curved, slender and longer than the lower lobe. In juveniles, there are 13 black and white stripes crossing their body that gradually fade out when they growing up, and finally the color body of the adults become brown. This shark has tentacle-like organs in the front part. Thus, it is named “cat shark” as well.

life cycle

Brown banded bamboo shark is a laying egg shark (oviparous). Their ovule is in an oval egg that is slightly flattened, and arounding with a sticky fiber that used for attach to underwater substrates.  Female shark lays eggs by using sticky fibers attaches to substrates and then leaves without taking care of the eggs. Shark eggs take approximately 90 days before hatching to shark juveniles. Each year, a female shark lays about 200 eggs.

Reproduction

Brown banded bamboo shark reproduce by laying eggs (oviparous). Male Sharks have a polyps shaped reproductive organs so called claspers while female sharks have a compartment shaped reproductive organ so called cloaca. In mating, male and female sharks swim side by side of each other prior to the male bites the female’s pectoral fin and inserts claspers into cloaca.

Male reproductive organ (claspers)

Feeds

Brown ​banded bamboo shark is a demersal fish. Thus, it has a behavior of staying still on the ground to wait for hunting shellfish, shrimp, crayfish, and crabs as their foods.

Habitats

Frog sharks are commonly found in sandy bottoms of coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific waters, from India, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines to northern Australia and Thailand in which they are found both in the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea.