Find a Fish
Large-tooth Cookie-cutter Shark
Isistius plutodus Garrick & Springer, 1964
Head of the Large-tooth Cookie-cutter showing the row of huge teeth in the lower jaw. Note the suctorial lips and the tiny teeth in the upper jaw. View larger image.
The 363 mm long Large-tooth Cookie-cutter Shark trawled in 1988 off Newcastle, New South Wales. View larger image.
The Large-tooth Cookie-cutter Shark has a cigar-shaped body, a short conical snout and two low, spineless dorsal fins. It has a row of 19 huge teeth (proportionately the largest of any shark species) in the lower jaw. Its anteriorly placed eyes may enable binocular vision.
The Large-tooth Cookie-cutter Shark grows to 50 cm in length. It feeds by biting pieces of muscle from the bodies of larger marine creatures.
This species is recorded from specimens caught in the Gulf of Mexico, off Okinawa, Japan, from the eastern Atlantic and from Australia.
The 363 mm long female shark in the image was trawled at a depth of about 100 m by the FV Teresa off Newcastle, New South Wales in 1988. It is the first record of this species from Southern Hemisphere waters. It is now registered in the fish collection of the Australian Museum (AMS I.28924-001).
View a map of the collecting localities of specimens in the Australian Museum Fish Collection.
The genus Isistius contains two species, I.plutodus and I.brasiliensis.
Related links
- Cookie-cutter Shark fact sheet
- View the shark list
Further reading
- Compagno, L.J.V. 1984. FAO species catalogue. Vol.4, Sharks of the world. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of shark species known to date. Part I - Hexanchiformes to Lamniformes: viii, 1-250. FAO Fisheries Synopsis 125: 1-249.
- Garrick, J.A.F & Springer, S. 1964. Isistius plutodus, a New Squaloid Shark from the Gulf of Mexico. Copeia (4): 678-682.
- McGrouther, M.A. 2001. First record of the Large-tooth Cookie-Cutter Shark, Isistius plutodus from Australian waters. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 46(2): 442.
- Zidowitz, H., Fock, H.O., Pusch, C. & H. Von Westernhagen. 2004. A first record of Isistius plutodus in the north-eastern Atlantic. Journal of Fish Biology. 64: 1430-1434.
