Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Danish Ingolf-Expedition, Vol. 2: On the Appendices Genitales in the Greenland Shark, Somniosus Microcephalus (Bl; Schn;), And Other Selachians, With 6 Plates and 18 Figures in the Text
The following treatise has its origin from the circumstance that during the stay at Iceland of the cruiser Ingolf I endeavoured to gather informations as to several facts concerning the Greenland Shark, not vet elucidated. I succeeded only in throwing light upon a single one of these obscure facts bv gathering a suitable material. At the subsequent examination of this material I soon perceived that the appendices genitales or claspers of the Selachians generally had hitherto been very imperfectly examined although these organs on account of their conspicuous- -sometimes almost colossal- dimensions have from time immemorial been known as characteristic for the males of cartilaginous fishes. Of their functions only little is known with certainty, and on this-point I am not able to bring new facts of any importance; but though the function must be supposed to be the same in all Selachians, a rich variation is found in their structure, especially in the skeleton, the structure being different from genus to genus or even from species to species. That, however, through all this variation a common type may be shown to exist, also with respect to the skeleton and the muscles, has not hitherto been seen, but will, I hope, with sufficient clearness be shown by the following treatise. As a consequence of the way, in which the work has come into existence, I have divided it into two parts, of which one deals with the Greenland Shark only, while the other treats of other Plagiostomes and Holocephales.
I. The Appendages of the Ventrals in the Greenland Shark.
The words with which Gunnerus' commences his treatise of the Greenland Shark: This fish of the Haackind deserves to be somewhat better known to the learned than hitherto it has been may be said to some extent to be in force to this day, our knowledge of this species of sharks being still rather defective, although it is not only very frequently found in the northern seas, but is also in several places the object of a large and regular fishery, as in our northern dependencies, especially off the coast of Iceland.
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