Cartilaginous fishes

Cartilaginous fishes (class Chondrichthyes) are, as the name suggests, a group of jawed fish with skeletons comprised of flexible cartilage rather than bone. All cartilaginous fishes are aquatic, but can be told from bony fish not only by the skeletal differences but also by lacking gill covers and swim bladders and by having rough tooth-like skin instead of scales. There are at least 1,282 species of cartilaginous fish living in every ocean and some freshwater habitats, divided into two subclasses – the elasmobranchs (sharks and rays) and Holocephali (chimaeras).

## Appearances in Dorling Kindersley Vision media

### See How They Grow

The life-cycles of rays are shown in one of the segments of the Sea Animals episode of See How They Grow. The exact species is not confirmed, but the episode definitely includes adult footage of both thornback and undulate rays, filmed in an aquarium. In the same aquarium, there is also footage of tope sharks, starry smooth-hounds and the young of a nursehound shark, all of them also appearing in the Ray segment. A thornback ray also appears later in the Hermit Crab segment of the same episode.

The undulate ray, tope and nursehound all appear solely in See How They Grow, making no appearance in any other Dorling Kindersley Vision programme.

### Eyewitness

A total of eleven episodes of Eyewitness contains at least one species of cartilaginous fish. The season with the most episodes in which a cartilaginous fish appears is season three, with five episodes; both seasons one and two have three episodes.

* **SEASON ONE**: Fish, Shark, Skeleton
* **SEASON TWO**: Seashore, Prehistoric Life, Shell
* **SEASON THREE**: Sight, Survival, Monster, Ocean, Life

Unsurprisingly, the episode with the most shark and ray species is Shark, with twenty-nine species shown either by studio-filmed footage or stock footage. This is followed by Monster, with seven species, both Survival and Ocean have four species, Sight has three species, Seashore and Life have two each and the remainder all contain just a single species.

Among Dorling Kindersley Vision programming, a large number of the cartilaginous fish in Eyewitness appear only in this series (as far as is currently known) – these include the great white shark, tiger shark, sand tiger, oceanic whitetip, bull shark, all four species of reef shark, leopard shark, bonnethead, megamouth shark, manta ray, spotted eagle ray, sawfish, bowmouth guitarfish and the spotted chimaera, the only species of Holocephali to appear in any DK Vision programme.

There was originally a plan to create an interactive game based on Eyewitness Shark, called Eyewitness Virtual Reality: Shark. It was advertised as coming in three of the other Eyewitness Virtual Reality games but for whatever reason the game was never released.

### Amazing Animals

A total of ten episodes of Amazing Animals contains at least one species of cartilaginous fish. Season three has the most, with four episodes; seasons one and two have three episodes apiece. Season four, by contrast, has no cartilaginous fish appear in any episode.

* **SEASON ONE**: Animal Appetites, Animal Senses, Armoured Animals
* **SEASON TWO**: Scary Animals, Animal Pets, Prehistoric Animals
* **SEASON THREE**: Animal Acrobats, Underwater Animals, Giant Animals, Animal Eggs

Scary Animals has the most appearances by a shark or ray, with five different species appearing. This is followed by Underwater Animals, with four species. Prehistoric Animals and Animal Eggs both have two species, while the other six episodes all have just a single species.

Sharks in general won the silver award in the Golden Gecko Awards in Prehistoric Animals, and the bronze award in Underwater Animals.

Very few different species appear in Amazing Animals, with only eight altogether – eight of the ten episodes, including five of the six single-species episodes, contain the blue shark. The only species of cartilaginous fish unique to Amazing Animals are the swellshark and singular episode appearances with the bat ray and shortfin mako shark.

### Creatures Fantastic

Only one episode of Creatures Fantastic available online shows any cartilaginous fish species – in The Underworld, a Southern stingray briefly appears to represent a sea monster, whose jaws are the entrance to the underworld in Jewish stories.

Creatures of the Deep almost certainly does feature sharks, even though the full episode is not available online yet – the spine and back cover of the VHS box (both of which include an episode screenshot) shows a school of scalloped hammerheads, while the description of the episode says that a shark god makes an appearance, making the inclusion of shark footage likely.

## Total species

* Grey reef shark, *Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos*
* Bull shark, *Carcharhinus leucas*
* Oceanic whitetip shark, *Carcharhinus longimanus*
* Blacktip reef shark, *Carcharhinus melanopterus*
* Caribbean reef shark, *Carcharhinus perezii*
* Sandbar shark, *Carcharhinus plumbeus*
* Lemon shark, *Negaprion brevirostris*
* Blue shark, *Prionace glauca*
* Whitetip reef shark, *Triaenodon obesus*
* Tiger shark, *Galeocerdo cuvier*
* Swellshark, *Cephaloscyllium ventriosum*
* Lesser spotted catshark, *Scyliorhinus canicula*
* Chain dogfish, *Scyliorhinus retifer*
* Nursehound, *Scyliorhinus stellaris*
* Scalloped hammerhead, *Sphyrna lewini*
* Bonnethead, *Sphyrna tiburo*
* Tope shark, *Galeorhinus galeus*
* Starry smooth-hound, *Mustelus asterias*
* Leopard shark, *Triakis semifasciata*
* Horn shark, *Heterodontus francisci*
* Basking shark, *Cetorhinus maximus*
* Great white shark, *Carcharodon carcharias*
* Shortfin mako shark, *Isurus oxyrinchus*
* Megamouth shark, *Megachasma pelagios*
* Sand tiger shark, *Carcharias taurus*
* Nurse shark, *Ginglymostoma cirratum*
* Whale shark, *Rhincodon typus*
* Pacific angelshark, *Squatina californica*
* Southern stingray, *Hypanus americanus*
* Spotted eagle ray, *Aetobatus narinari*
* Bat ray, *Myliobatis californica*
* Giant manta ray, *Mobula birostris*
* Sawfish, *Pristis sp*.
* Thornback ray, *Raja clavata*
* Undulate ray, *Raja undulata*
* Bowmouth guitarfish, *Rhina ancylostoma*
* Spotted chimaera, *Hydrolagus colliei*

Gallery

Great white sharkBull sharkTiger sharkOceanic whitetip sharkBlue sharkShortfin mako sharkWhale sharkBasking sharkMegamouth sharkLemon sharkBlacktip reef sharkGrey reef sharkWhitetip reef sharkCaribbean reef sharkPacific angelsharkAtlantic nurse sharkLeopard sharkTopeStarry smooth-hound