Longfin mako shark images (Isurus paucus) - stock photos, illustrations & facts
Conservation status | Threatened | Endangered
Scientific classification | Kingdom: Animalia > Phylum: Chordata > Class: Chondrichthyes > Order: Lamniformes > Family: Lamnidae > Genus: Isurus > Species: I. paucus
Binomial name | Isurus paucus
The longfin mako shark, Isurus paucus, is a large shark found in temperate and tropical seas worldwide. It is...
more »Longfin mako shark images (Isurus paucus) - stock photos, illustrations & facts
Conservation status | Threatened | Endangered
Scientific classification | Kingdom: Animalia > Phylum: Chordata > Class: Chondrichthyes > Order: Lamniformes > Family: Lamnidae > Genus: Isurus > Species: I. paucus
Binomial name | Isurus paucus
The longfin mako shark, Isurus paucus, is a large shark found in temperate and tropical seas worldwide. It is commonly included under the name "mako" with its more common relative the shortfin mako shark, Isurus oxyrinchus. The longfin mako has a slimmer build and long, broad pectoral fins which would make it most likely a slow swimming and endothermic shark, less active than the shortfin mako. It grows upwards of eight feet long and weighs over 150 pounds. Like the shortfin mako, females are larger than males.
There is much less known about the habitat of the longfin mako than the shortfin mako. It is common in the western Atlantic Ocean and possibly in the central Pacific Ocean, residing in both tropical and a warm temperate climates, but it is rare elsewhere.
The longfin mako shark has a slender, spindle shaped body with a long conical head in proportion to its body. It is presumed to feed on schooling fishes and pelagic cephalopods. Reproduction is ovoviparous, like the shortfin mako, but the fetuses are larger, and they typically produce only two pups about 39 inches long at birth.
The longfin mako shark’s conservation is uncertain, due to its rarity in most oceans, limited knowledge of its habits, low birth rate, and death by bycatch in commercial fishing. The fish is not as palatable as the shortfin mako shark, and when caught are mostly finned for shark fin soup and the rest of the shark thrown back into the ocean to die.
The longfin mako is listed as "Vulnerable" on the IUCN Red List.
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