First reports of Megamouth Shark, Megachasma pelagios Taylor, Compagno &amp; Struhsaker, 1983 (Lamniformes, Megachasmidae),&nbsp;in Peru

Shaleyla Kelez; Rossana Maguiño Napuri; Alejandra Mendoza Pfennig; Oswaldo Caldas Martinez; Antonio Torres Carrasco

doi:10.15560/16.5.1361

Check List 16(5): 1361-1367, doi: 10.15560/16.5.1361

First reports of Megamouth Shark, Megachasma pelagios Taylor, Compagno & Struhsaker, 1983 (Lamniformes, Megachasmidae), in Peru

Shaleyla Kelez^‡, Rossana Maguiño Napuri^‡, Alejandra Mendoza Pfennig^‡, Oswaldo Caldas Martinez^§, Antonio Torres Carrasco^|

‡ ecOceánica, Lima, Peru§ Pesquera Hayduk S.A., Lima, Peru| Planeta Oceano, Lima, Peru

Corresponding author: Shaleyla Kelez ( shaleyla.kelez@ecoceanica.org )

Academic editor: Arturo Angulo

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Kelez S, Maguiño Napuri R, Mendoza Pfennig A, Caldas Martinez O, Torres Carrasco A (2020) First reports of Megamouth Shark, Megachasma pelagios Taylor, Compagno & Struhsaker, 1983 (Lamniformes, Megachasmidae), in Peru. Check List 16(5): 1361-1367. https://doi.org/10.15560/16.5.1361

Abstract

Megamouth Shark, Megachasma pelagios Taylor, Compagno & Struhsaker, 1983, is one of the least-known shark species worldwide. We report the encounters of four megamouth sharks: one caught in a driftnet off Piura (November 2016; sex indeterminate), one landed in Los Organos (July 2018; female), one stranded in El Ñuro (July 2018; sex indeterminate, ca 300 m total length), and one caught in a purse seine off Lambayeque (June 2019; female, total length ca 300 cm). These are the first records from Peru and expand the species’ known southern limit by 415 km. With the addition of M. pelagios, there are 67 species of sharks in Peru.

Keywords

bycatch, elasmobranchs, range extension, strandings