Growth rates of some better-known elasmobranchs
Males Females
Common name Species (% per year) (% per year)
Sharks
Tiger Galeocerdo cuvier 18 18
Blue Prionace glauca 18 13
Scalloped Hammerhead Sphyrna lewini 22 25
Spiny Dogfish Squalus acanthias 20 17
Sand Tiger Carcharias taurus 16 11
Rays
Pacific Electric Ray Torpedo californica 14 8
Pacific Angelshark Squatina californica 15 16
Smalltooth Sawfish Pristis pectinata 8 8
Longnose Skate Raja rhina 25 16
Lobed Stingaree Urolophus lobatus 51 37
Southern Stingray Dasyatis americana 21 53
Chimaeras
Elephantfish Callorhynchus millii 23 10
Note: Values are average increase in growth per year, given as a percentage of body
length.An X-ray photograph (“radiograph”) of one-half of a vertebra from a 170 -cm ( 5. 6 -ft), 10 -year-old female Salmon Shark
from Alaska. The vertebra has been sliced as one would cut a pizza pie in half, with the side view of the left half shown.
The pairs of dark and light bands make up the growth rings, each year of growth equal to one band pair. Light bands
are periods of fast growth; dark bands, of slower growth. B: growth at birth; PB: growth before birth; CR: centrum ra-
dius, or length of the section analyzed. Corpus calcareum is the anatomical name of the outer region of the vertebra,
where banding is most obvious. Photo courtesy of Ken Goldman, from K. J. Goldman and J. A. Musick, “Growth and maturity of Salmon
Sharks (Lamna ditropis) in the eastern and western North Pacific, and comments on back-calculation methods,” Fishery Bulletin 104 ( 2006 ): 278 – 92