Fr:	Requin griset; Requin grise
Sp:	Canabota gris; Bocadolc clar (Catalunya); Bocadolca (Tarragona)
It:	Capopiatto; pesce vacca; pesciu muggiu (Liguria); manzo (Rimini); cagnia (Venice)
Ma:	Murruna b¹sitt gargi; Murruna

Diagnosis

Six gill slits;   a large, heavy but rather flabby body with a wide, bluntly-rounded snout and rather small reflective green eyes. Mouth wide and broadly rounded when viewed ventrally, with 6 rows (usually) of prominent comblike teeth in the lower jaw. The cusps of these teeth are relatively low. One dorsal fin, sited mostly above the anal fin, with anterior origin adjacent or just posterior to the pelvic fin insertion.  Caudal peduncle short and thick, equating to about the length of the dorsal fin base when measured from dorsal fin insertion to caudal fin origin.  Ventral lobe of caudal kin only moderately developed, not very distinct. Colour olive-green to brown-grey, grading to paler ventrally, with a distinct light-coloured line along each flank at the level of the lateral line.  No distinct fin-markings although their anterior edges may appear paler in freshly-caught young juveniles.

Size

To at least 480cm TL, quite possibly 500cm; common between 200 and 320 cm.  Size at birth ca. 65 to 70 cm.

Status and Distribution

N.E. Atlantic: Common or occasional.
  Northerly range extends to Southern Iceland and Norwegian Coast, where these sharks are rather infrequently encountered and sympatric with the boreal-Arctic greenland shark,Somniosus microcephalus. North Sea coasts of Scotland, England and Northern Europe (generally rather rare); more common on Western fringes of the U.K., especially from the Celtic Sea and Ireland southwards; English Channel, French coasts southwards through Biscay, Portugal and Spain.  West African coastline south to Senegal and possibly further, at least in deeper water offshore.
Mediterranean Sea: Rather common, from Gibraltar to Crete and particularly in deeper regions of the Sicilian Channel, south-west of Malta.  Occurs along entire Spanish coasts, including Balearics; also Côte d¹Azur and Ligurian Sea; Tyrrhenian Sea, Ionian Sea but rather scarce in the upper reaches of the Adriatic.  Occasional within the Aegean, often at insular locales adjacent to deepwater.

Biology

Principally a deepwater species, usually offshore near the bottom at depth of 50 to over 1800 m, but occasionally inshore, especially along rocky coasts or near islands, at depths of 25 to 50 m.  Rises to the surface nocturnally where it is sometimes hooked on surface longlines. Although apparently sluggish,  these sharks are capable, powerful and cosmopolitan predators on large taxa, preying upon a wide range of bony fish such as hake, ling, flounders, gurnards, tunas, other sharks, marine mammals, chimaeras and rays; squid, octopus, crabs and shrimps. More agile prey (such as seals) might be ambushed cryptically on or near the bottom, as seemingly is the case with the similarly-sized greenland shark, Somniosus microcephalus. Bluntnose sixgills are voracious scavengers of hooked or netted fish (including juvenile swordfish) and possibly mammalian remain. Reproduction is ovoviviparous,  22-108 young per litter with females maturing at about 450-480 cm TL.