População do cação-junteiro, Carcharhinus porosus, em diferentes profundidades das regiões nordeste e norte do Brasil

Abstract

The cação-junteiro, Carcharhinus porosus, is a small shark no longer than 150 cm in total length. It has continuous distribution in the western Atlantic, in the shallow waters between the Mexican gulf and the southern coast of Brazil. It is an opportunist predator, generally piscivorous, but which preys the most abundant prey. Even among sharks, C. porosus shows slow growth, late sexual maturity, and low fecundity, what makes it a k-strategist species. The species is mainly coastal, however, it has been reported in depths as deep as 80 meters. The goal of this report was to depict population aspects of the cação-junteiro according to catch depth. The sharks were captured between 1985 and 1988, between the Amapá state and the Ceará state, as a bycatch of prawn fishing and by another fishing tools. The catch varied between depths of 30 to 84 meters. 103 specimens were collected, where 28 were males and 75 were females, ranging in length from 333 mm to 1275 mm. Most of the organisms (80%) were captured in depths greater than 60 meters, independently of its total length. Individuals with a total length between 500 and 700 mm were not held. Furthermore, both males and females occurred in almost all the depths, suggesting that there was no sexual segregation in this species according to depth. Keywords: Shark