Angular roughshark or pig faced shark in the Mediterranean

Sunday 12th September 2021

“A STRANGE creature with the body of a shark and the face of a pig has been pulled out of the sea by baffled Italian naval officers. The animal was spotted floating in the water on the Italian island of Elba.”

Linnaeus described the angular roughshark, O. centrina, in 1758. This name was later finalized and accepted by the scientific community as the official name for the species in 1976, although it is also known as the pig faced shark.

there is nothing particularly for tea in about the discovery of this creature dead on the surface of the water, but it is such a peculiar looking animal, that we decided we wanted to share the story with you.

interestingly, allsorts of people in the media got the name wrong, calling it a pig nose shark. When we went to check up the Latin name we found no such thing existed, and had to do a bit of digging.

Original story HERE

Check out some more strange marine stories HERE

Jonathan Downes
Cryptozoologist, naturalist, musician, singer, composer, poet, novelist and Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology since 1992. Jon was born in Portsmouth in 1959 and spent his infancy in Nigeria and his childhood in Hong Kong. His wife Corinna died of cancer in 2020, leaving him with two stepdaughters and a six year old granddaughter called Evelyn.