This Weaselly Fish Didn't Inspire Jaws or Shark Week

If you’re anything like me, you cried when Shark Week ended. Hosted annually by the Discovery Channel, every moment of seven, glorious days is filled with a variety of sharks doing their sharky thing. After looking up shark behavior in an Internet dictionary, there was only one definition. Awesome. So in honor of everyone’s favorite week…

Meet the Gray Smoothhound.  

Ok, while the Gray Smoothhound probably didn’t inspire Jaws, usually clocking in at less than four feet, this local estuary shark is still pretty cool.

Unlike some of their larger counterparts, smoothhounds are benthic.

That fancy word means you are not on this shark’s dinner menu. Benthic sharks are bottom feeders. They like worms, clams, shrimp, octopuses and small fish. Their teeth, short and blunt, mash up against grinding plates - all the better for eating shellfish, not humans.

This shark’s genus name is amusingly apropos: Mustelus californicus, and Mustelus comes from the Latin word mustela, meaning weasel.

And it kind of looks like one. Its large, oval eyes and flat, pointed snout give it a similar appearance to the furry carnivore.

Sharks may seem light years from humans with their cartilage bodies and constantly regenerating teeth, but when it comes to having babies, smoothhounds are more similar to mammals than most fish. These sharks are viviparous, meaning they give birth to live young without using eggs.

Shark week fans will know that most sharks are ovoviviparous. Mothers produce eggs that hatch in a special part of her body where they mature, feeding on remnants of the egg’s nutrients. Smoothhounds give birth to live and fully functional young – no egg required.

Gray Smoothhounds also go by the name of dogfish, according to the San Diego Natural History Museum. Let’s forget for a minute that the smoothhound is part of the triakidae family, not the real dogfish family of squalidae.

Ignoring this fact, there is a perfect beverage to celebrate both the gray smoothhound and shark week - beer from the Dogfish Head Brewery. This east coast craft brewery obviously thought the shark was cool. They use his photo as their logo. (It does look pretty similar to a gray smoothhound.)

Smoothhounds can be found in shallow waters from northern Califorina to the southern tip of Baja California.

Often feeding at depths of less than six feet, look for gray coloring with some blue and brown. These sharks like sandy environments, which tend to house many of their favorite eats.