First report of the crocodile shark Pseudocarcharias kamoharai (Matsubara,1936)from Chennai, southeast coast of India

This paper reports the occurrence of the crocodile shark Pseudocarcharias kamoharai in the waters off Chennai in the south-east coast of India and is a new locality record for the species, confirming its distribution in the Bay of Bengal. P. kamoharai is the only representative of the family Pseudocarchariidae and is the smallest known living mackerel shark (Order: Lamniformes). A single adult male specimen measuring 91 cm in total length and weighing 2.2 kg weight was collected from the landings by a deep sea trawler at Chennai Fisheries Harbour, caught in hook and line operations for yellow-fin tuna in the waters off the Chennai – Puducherry coast, at a depth of 300 m. Reported to occur as by-catch in Japanese yellow fin tuna long line fishery and Australian swordfish fishery, both in the Indian Ocean, it has been classified as “Near Threatened” by IUCN