Swell shark
Cephaloscyllium ventriosum
Size, compared with you
You: 1.7 m. Swell shark: 1.1 m.
Person-sized. Grows up to about 1.1 m.
The swell shark is a small catshark that lives around rocky, kelp-covered sea floors off California and Mexico. It hides in crevices by day and comes out to hunt at night.
The weird bit
To defend itself, the swell shark can swallow water and swell up to about double its normal size, which makes it hard for a predator to pull out of a crevice.
Quick facts
- Where it lives
- Coral reef, Coast and shallows5 to 457 m down
- What it eats
- Bony fish, alive and dead, and probably crustaceans
- How worried are we?
- Doing okay (Least Concern)Assessed in 2015 by the IUCN Red List.