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LiveScience
Angular roughshark: The pig-faced shark that grunts when captured
By Lydia Smith,
1 days ago
Name: Angular roughshark ( Oxynotus centrina )
Where it lives: In the eastern Atlantic ocean from Norway to South Africa, and the Mediterranean sea
What it eats: Fish, crustaceans, molluscs, marine worms and shark eggs
Why it's awesome: When we think of sharks, we tend to imagine large, muscular predators like great whites or hammerheads. But for the pig-like angular roughshark, this is not the case. These bizarre sharks have flat heads, wide-set eyes and pink snouts.
"It is commonly called a 'pig fish' because when it comes out of the water it emits a kind of grunt," Yuri Tiberto of the Elba Aquarium in Italy, told Toscana Media News in 2021, after a dead individual was pulled from the water in Elba, an Italian island near Tuscany, and posted to Facebook by the tourism website Isola d'Elba App .
Angular roughsharks generally grow around 3.3 feet (1 meters) long and have thick, gray-brown bodies with two large dorsal fins that resemble sails. They have a triangular profile from the front.
Like all sharks, their skin is covered in dermal denticles — flat, V-shaped tooth-like structures that consist of pulp, dentine and enamel .
While all sharks have denticles, roughshark denticles are particularly large and pronounced, giving them a fuzzy appearance. Scientists don't know exactly why this is, but it may be to help protect the animal from larger predators.
Combined with its furry-looking face, the angular roughshark also has a short, blunt snout with massive nostrils, adding to their pig-like appearance.
These strange features relate to their lifestyles; they spend most of their time swimming just above the seafloor looking for food. They tend to move slowly, vacuuming up their prey.
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