The Prickly shark (Echinorhinus cookei), looking like the big brother of the Ninja lanternshark, is thankfully not as irritable as its name suggests. On the contrary, despite its size of up to 13.1 ft -4 m- it is rather shy around humans.
The Prickly shark, as well as its brother Echinorhinus brucus from the family Bramble sharks or Echinorhinidae, is known for its thorn-like denticles. Thus its scientific name Echinorhinus, which is greek for echinos = hedgehog or sea urchin and rhinos = nose. It inhabits deeper coastal waters of the Pacific ocean from California and Hawaii to Chile and China to New Zealand and stays as a homebody in a rather small home range of 0.85 sq mi -2.2 km2. It likes it rather cool and stays by day in depths of up to 4900 ft -1500 m-, but migrates at night upwards near the surface.
Prickly sharks are not targeted directly (its meat isn’t tasty), but are often victims of bycatch of deepwater trawl fisheries to sate our increasing need for fish meal (used for aquaculture and pig, chicken and even cow husbandry). Therefore they are considered as near threatened by the IUCN, even though a female has been found with up to 114 embryos (they are ovoviviparous).
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