Angelshark
Squatina squatina
Size, compared with you
You: 1.7 m. Angelshark: 2.4 m.
Person-sized. Grows up to about 2.4 m.
A flat shark that looks like a ray but is a true shark. It buries itself in sand or mud and waits for a fish to swim past.
The weird bit
An angelshark can lunge and gulp down its prey in a fraction of a second, from a hiding place under the sand.
Quick facts
- Where it lives
- Coast and shallows5 to 150 m down
- What it eats
- Flatfish and other bottom fish, crustaceans and molluscs, caught by ambush
- How worried are we?
- In serious danger (Critically Endangered)Assessed in 2017 by the IUCN Red List.