Basking Schark. XIV

Title

Basking Schark. XIV

Illustration of a basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus), the second largest living shark and fish after the whale shark. It is one of three plankton-eating shark species, along with the whale shark and megamouth shark.

ca. 1850

Artist

Anonymus

Historical Description

Fish are aquatic vertebrates with gills. In a narrower sense, fish are the jawed mammals that do not belong to the terrestrial vertebrates. Among the animal groups living today, these include: cartilaginous fish with the sharks, rays and sea cats that live almost exclusively in the sea. Bony fishes in the broader sense, composed of carnivorous and ray-finned fishes. Fleshy fins include the marine coelacanths and the lungfishes that live in the freshwater of the southern hemisphere. The ray-finned fishes include all other fish groups, including all European freshwater fishes.