Gray Smooth-hound

The gray smooth-hound is a slim, easygoing shark that patrols sandy bays and shelf bottoms along the Pacific coast, digging through mud for crabs rather than chasing fish in open water. It grows to about 116 cm, a modest size that keeps it out of most divers' worry list.

Also known as: grey smooth-hound

It looks much like the brown smooth-hound, but the two are hard to split underwater since the clearest differences are in tooth shape and scale texture, visible only up close. As a rough guide, this species has no scattered spots at all, unlike some other small sharks sharing its range.

This shark has a slender body, a long blunt snout, and eyes set high on the sides of its head. It is brown to dark gray on top and white underneath, with no spots. The lower lobe of its tail fin is small, and the second dorsal fin (the smaller fin behind the main one) is also small.

It lives on the seafloor along the coast of California and Baja California, from shelf edges down into shallow muddy bays and estuaries. Divers most often see it in water under 46 m, often near eelgrass beds where it hunts at night and rests in warmer open patches by day.

It feeds mainly on crabs, along with shrimp, scallops, and ghost shrimp dug from the mud. Adults also eat small fish such as herring, while smaller sharks rely heavily on shore crabs.

Females give birth to live pups once a year, after a pregnancy of about 9 to 12 months, with litters of 3 to 17 pups. Females mature at 2 to 3 years old and males at 1 to 2 years, and the species can live to around 9 years.

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  Brown Smooth-hound

  Mustelus henlei

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  Dusky Smooth-hound

  Mustelus canis

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  Gummy Shark

  Mustelus antarcticus

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  Leopard Shark

  Triakis semifasciata

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  Spotted Gully Shark

  Triakis megalopterus

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  Tope shark

  Galeorhinus galeus