The Dusky Snout Catshark is a new species of shark discovered in 2012. It was discovered on an expedition to the Southern Indian Ocean, occurring again in 2014 for Alien Sharks: Return to the Abyss. It’s one of a number of new species of sharks discovered in the Southern Indian Ocean, and it’s the first of the collection to be officially described.
Since it didn’t have a name at the time, the new shark was nicknamed “cutiei,” referring to its cutely scrunched up face and chubby tummy. But Paul J. Clerkin and his adviser David A. Ebert decided to name it after Gavin Naylor, the geneticist who ran the tissue samples collected during the Southern Indian Ocean expeditions.
Distribution: southwestern Indian Ocean
Biology: Oviparous, lays eggcases.
Sources: Ebert, D.A. & Clerkin, P.J. (2015). “A new species of deep-sea catshark (Scyliorhinidae: Bythaelurus) from the southwestern Indian Ocean” (PDF).Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, 15: 53–63.