Bernard Seret

IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement) · Ecosystèmes Marins Exploités (EME - IRD) & Systématique et Evolution (MNHN)

A remarkable new deep-water skate, Leucoraja longirostris n. sp., is described based on eight specimens caught during different expeditions to the southern Madagascar Ridge in the southwestern Indian Ocean. The new species differs from all congeners by its remarkably long and acutely angled snout (horizontal preorbital length 17.2–22.6% TL vs. 8.5–...

General review of the shark exploitation and "tools" to conserve their populations. Article written for public education in the journal of the French association for the protection of Nature (SNPN) : "Le Courrier de la Nature". In French.

The shark-like rays (Rhinopristiformes) are among the most threatened species of cartilaginous fishes. The guitarfishes (Rhinobatidae) are one of 5 families in the order, with 62% of species assessed as Vulnerable or higher by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Species-specific fisheries and conservation efforts have bee...

Synthetic review on the conservation and protection measures for sharks and rays. Article written for pubic education in a French magazine for game fishers: Voyages de Pêche. In French.

Rhyacichthys guilberti a new species of loach goby from northeastern New Caledonia

Two specimens of large blackish chimaeras of the genus Hydrolagus were caught, one off Reunion Island and the other off Mayotte in the southwestern Indian Ocean. The specimens, an adult male of 710 mm BDL and a female of 870 m BDL, are described, compared to similar species (i.e., having a large size, over 110 cm TL, dark blackish colour, and rathe...

On our planet, with the exception of the marine protected areas (MAPs), there are almost no more areas without fishing activities, whether recreational or professional, artisanal or industrial. About fishing, we are familiar with the commercial catches, but we know very little about the by-catches, i.e. the species of fishes and marine mammals tha...

Séret B. 2022 (preprint) Chondrichthyan Fishes (Sharks, Rays and Chimaeras). Pp 386-398. In: The New Natural History of Madagascar (Goodman S.M. ed), chapter 7. Marine and coastal ecosystem. Princeton University Press, ISBN 978069122622, 2296 p.

This paper presents the biological information for most commonly shark species collated by the EU Projects "Provision of scientific advice for the purpose of the implementation of the EUPOA sharks (MARE/2010/11, 2011-2013) (Murua et al., 2013)" and "Improving scientific advice for the conservation and management of oceanic sharks and rays (SC 01 EA...

Family Pristidae. Sawfishes. In: Coastal Fishes of the Western Indian Ocean.

Family Rhinobatidae. Guitarfishes and shovelnose rays. In: Coastal Fishes of the Western Indian Ocean.

Family Glaucostegidae. Giant guitarfishes. In: Coastal Fishes of the Western Indian Ocean

First records of the West African torpedo in Cabo Verde Archipelago, eastern Atlantic

Despite the fact that elasmobranchs are now targeted in artisanal fisheries in the wake of continuous declines of teleosts in Ghana, data on any aspects of these fisheries are poor. This study aims to document the spatial and temporal variation, and biological composition of elasmobranchs in five key elasmobranch-dominated fishing communities in We...

Volume 2 Bivalves, gastropods, hagfishes, sharks, batoid fishes and chimaeras. Batoids Fishes.

Sharks have declined worldwide and remote sanctuaries are becoming crucial for shark conservation. The southwest Indian Ocean is a hotspot of both terrestrial and marine biodiversity mostly impacted by anthropogenic damage. Sharks were observed during surveys performed from April to June 2013 in the virtually pristine coral reefs around Europa Isla...

Sharks have declined worldwide and remote sanctuaries are becoming crucial for shark conservation. The southwest Indian Ocean is a hotspot of both terrestrial and marine biodiversity mostly impacted by anthropogenic damage. Sharks were observed during surveys performed from April to June 2013 in the virtually pristine coral reefs around Europa Isla...

Recent sampling efforts and examinations of museum material provided evidence for a complex of species within Acroteriobatus leucospilus (Norman, 1926). The present manuscript contains a redescription of A. leucospilus involving the syntypes and additional material, as well as formal descriptions of two new species of Acroteriobatus Giltay, 1928. A...

A new deep-sea softnose skate, Notoraja hesperindica, is described based on six specimens caught in 1230–1600 m depths off southern Mozambique and northwestern Madagascar in the western Indian Ocean. The new species is a medium-sized species of Notoraja Ishiyama, 1958 reaching a total length of at least 539 mm. It is the only Notoraja species known...

The anatomy of the feeding apparatus of the snaggletooth shark, Hemipristis elongata (Klunzinger, 1871) is illustrated in detail from the dissection of three heads. Two new muscles are described: the Adductor mandibularis internus and the Levator mandibularis. A subdivision of the Levator palatoquadrati is described and named the Pronator subdivisi...

The Mediterranean Large Elasmobranchs Monitoring (MEDLEM) database contains over 3000 records (more than 4000 individuals) of large elasmobranch species from 20 different countries around the Mediterranean and Black seas, observed from 1666 to 2017. The main species included in the archive are the devil fish (1 813 individuals), the basking shark (...

The epithet obsolerus recently used to name a new species of shark is doubtless an “incorrect original spelling” which must be corrected into obsoletus. However, a strict respect of Article 32.5.1 of the Code would not allow this correction, as the original paper did not provide “clear evidence of an inadvertent error”, which can be established onl...

Developing nations in tropical regions harbour rich biological resources on which humans depend for food, income and employment, yet data to aid their management is often lacking. In West Africa, the diversity and fisheries of elasmobranchs are poorly documented, despite them being known to be economically important and vulnerable to overexploitati...

A new species of guitarfish, Rhinobatos ranongensis sp. nov., is described from 5 preserved specimens, and images and tissue samples of additional material, collected from the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. This species co-occurs in the eastern sector of the northern Indian Ocean with two poorly defined congeners, R. annandalei Norman and R. lionot...

UE Framework contract EASME/EMFF/2016/008

Scyllium spinacipellitum is synonymized with Apristurus atlanticus

English version of the French educative cartoon "Requins. Les connaître, pour mieux les comprendre".

cf attached doc

A total of 38 individuals of the heavily exploited little gulper shark Centrophorus uyato were collected from Lebanese coastal waters using bottom longlines and trammel nets of different meshes at depths ranging from 115 to 600 m between May 2013 and February 2014. Their total lengths were between 45 and 94 cm and their total mass was from 870 to 6...

Accurate determination of the origin and timing of trauma is key in medicolegal investigations when the cause and manner of death are unknown. However, distinction between criminal and accidental perimortem trauma and postmortem modifications can be challenging when facing unidentified trauma. Postmortem examination of the immersed victims of the Y...

The alpha taxonomy of the globally distributed shark genus Squalus has been under intense investigation recently, and many new species have been described over the last decade. However, taxonomic uncertainty remains about several taxa. Without consistent nomenclature and the ability to reliably distinguish between the different Squalus species, bas...

The alpha taxonomy of the globally distributed shark genus Squalus has been under intense investigation recently, and many new species have been described over the last decade. However, taxonomic uncertainty remains about several taxa. Without consistent nomenclature and the ability to reliably distinguish between the different Squalus species, bas...

The first illustrated guide to the over 630 known species of rays found on the planet. Rays are among the largest fishes and evolved from shark-like ancestors nearly 200 million years ago. Rays of the World is the first complete pictorial atlas of the world's ray fauna and includes information on many species only recently discovered by scientists...

Rays of the World (in press), the first fully illustrated treatment of the world’s ray fauna, will summarise information on this surprisingly poorly known group of chondrichthyan fishes. Specialist long-term information and new data acquired as part of a multinational research initiative (Chondrichthyan Tree of Life Project) have provided a better...

Four species of stingrays of the genus Dasyatis occur in the Gulf of Gabès, but the taxonomic status of one of them, D. tortonesei has been questioned by several authors, and synonymized with D. pastinaca by some. The present study, using morphological comparisons and genetic analyses, demonstrates that there is a closely related species to D. past...

Tuna fisheries have been identified as one of the major threats to populations of other marine vertebrates, including sea turtles, sharks, seabirds and marine mammals. The development of technical mitigation measures (MM) in fisheries is part of the code of conduct for responsible fisheries. An in-depth analysis of the available literature regardin...

A new species of panray, Zanabatus maculatus sp. nov., is described from 12 type specimens collected in the Gulf of Guinea (Eastern Central Atlantic). The new species is distinguished from its sympatric congener, the striped panray Zanobatus schoenleinii , by its smaller size, heavier thorn pattern, spearhead-shaped dermal denticles and maculate co...

An investigation of combined CO1 and NADH2 data for rajid skates referable to Raja miraletus provided evidence that populations ranging from southern Africa to the North-East Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, once considered to represent a cline, belong to a species complex consisting of at least four valid species. Raja miraletus appears to be confi...

A new wedgefish, Rhynchorhina mauritaniensis gen. et sp. nov., is described from three specimens collected in the shallow waters of the shoal "Banc d'Arguin", off Mauritania (Eastern Central Atlantic). The new genus is mainly distinguished from its close relatives, members of the genus Rhynchobatus, by its snout shape, more broadly rounded like tha...

A single specimen of a new Bathyraja skate was collected by the authors in 2003 during a survey of the deepwater biota of the northern Tasman Sea by the New Zealand FRV Tangaroa. This skate, labelled the 'blonde skate' by voyage participants, is uniformly white on all surfaces of the body and the skin is partly translucent. It belongs to a subgroup...

A new guitarfish, Rhinobatos borneensis sp. nov., is described from material collected at fish markets in Malaysian Borneo (South China Sea). This ray, which is almost plain coloured with faint orange blotches in adults, has a more colourful embryo marked with small pale ocelli with dark centres. Confused with R. Schlegelii (Japan to Taiwan) and it...

Based on new photographs of the wound, Tirard et al. (2015) tried to demonstrate that the shark involved in a fatal attack on a human in Lifou in 2007 had homodont teeth and that it sawed the femur instead of directly cutting it, promoting the hypothesis that it was a tiger shark instead of a white shark. They also contested the data provided by th...

The bluespotted maskray, Neotrygon kuhlii (Muller & Henle, 1841), once thought to be widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific, consists of a complex of several species and the type series consists of multiple species; its nomenclature is discussed. A lectotype and paralectotype are designated and the species rediagnosed based on the types and a...

During two surveys in 2011 and 2013, we deployed pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) on subadult or adult porbeagles at the Bay of Biscay shelf break. We collected data that enabled the reconstruction of nine migrations (eight females, one male) that uncover the large spatial extent of these sharks in the Northeast Atlantic. The mean duration of...

Recently, declining populations of several pelagic shark species have led to global conservation concerns surrounding this group. As a result, a series of species-specific banning measures have been implemented by Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs) in charge of tuna fisheries, which include retention bans, finning bans and trading ba...

Human impact on the oceans predates scientific observation, which for many animal populations has captured only recent changes. Such a limited knowledge can hamper finding optimal management and conservation strategies including setting appropriate recovery targets. Sawfishes are among the most endangered marine vertebrates in the ocean. Historical...

Set of 2 posters on jaws and teeth of sharks. 1- Jaws of coastal sharks. Published by the authors: Anthony CHAPPELL & Bernard SERET.

Set of 2 posters on jaws and teeth of sharks. 2. Jaws of pelagic and deep-sea sharks. Published by the authors: Anthony Chappell & Bernard SERET.

Séret B. & Chappell A., 2014. Records of snaggletooth shark Hemipristis elongata in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea, with anatomical observations on its feeding apparatus. Communication (poster) presented at the “Shark International Conference”, Durban South Africa, 2-6 June 2014.

A time series of national commercial landings statistics, logbook data and biological information from sampling commercial and scientific samples are collated to assess the status of five pelagic shark species caught by French domestic fisheries. According to official statistics, average catch levels, for the last five years, for porbeagle (Lamna n...

An annotated checklist of chondrichthyan fishes (sharks, batoids, and chimaeras) occurring in Taiwanese waters is presented. The checklist is the result of a biodiversity workshop held in Mach 2012 as well as on-going systematic revisions by the authors. The chondrichthyan fauna of Taiwan is one of the richest in the world with the number of specie...

A pelagic record of a rare deep-water shark, the velvet dogfish Zameus squamulosus (Günther, 1877), is described from the southwestern Indian Ocean. This is the first pelagic record from the western Indian Ocean and the eleventh published record of this species from the entire basin. Together with non-published records from museums and online datab...

Dans la mythologie grecque, la chimère était un animal mythique à tête de lion, corps ou autre tête de chèvre, queue de serpent et capable de cracher du feu ! En génétique, une chimère est un organisme créé à partir des cellules de plusieurs animaux différents et donc qui présente des attributs d'espèces différentes regroupés en un seul animal. Enf...

Morphometric relationships between total length, fork length and pre-caudal length as well as between total length and whole weight are described for silky sharks Carcharhinus falciformis from the western Indian Ocean

Séret B., 2012. Deep-sea sharks from Reunion Island (SW Indian Ocena). Communication (poster) presented at the sympoisum on “Biology of Deep-sea chondrichthyans” of the 7th World Congress of Herpetology and joint meeting of Ichthyologists and herpetologists, Vancouver, Canada, 8-14 August. 2014.

Four new skates of the genus Notoraja Ishiyama, 1958 are described from the rarely accessed, deep waters off New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji islands, and the Norfolk Ridge. Three of these (N. alisae n. sp., N longiventralis n. sp. and N fijiensis n. sp.) are "velcro skates" which are characterised by their velvety dorsal and ventral surfaces, cover...

Two species of spurdog of the genus Squalus occur in the Gulf of Gabes (southern Tunisia, central Mediterranean): the longnose spurdog Squalus blainvillei (Risso, 1827) and a short-snout spurdog of the Squall's megalopscubensis group. Morphometric and meristic data as well as a genetic analyses (DNA inter-simple sequence repeat markers and molecula...

Several occurrences of White Sharks in tropical waters have been reported, but in the context of gaps in the knowledge of the ecology of that top predator, they appear as unusual and unexpected destinations. The New Caledonian exclusive economic zone covers 1,400,000 km 2 , with sea-surface temperatures oscillating between 20 and 21°C in winter and...

Two new species of the softnose skate genus Brochiraja are described based on material collected from the Norfolk Ridge in the northern Tasman Sea (South-West Pacific). Most of this material was collected in 2003 by the New Zealand vessel, RV Tangaroa, during the NORFANZ voyage. These species extend the known range of the genus northward along the...

A new righteye flounder, Samariscus neocaledonia sp. nov., is described on the basis of two specimens collected in deep waters (244-278 m) around New Caledonia. The new species is easily distinguished from its 18 congeners in having a combination of 78-81 dorsal fin rays, 62-65 anal fin rays, five pectoral fin rays, ca. 55-62 lateral line scales, a...

Species of Lophiidae collected from the western South Pacific Ocean are examined. Nine nominal species are recognized, all but one species with their distributions extended eastwards and southwards from the western Pacific Ocean. Two new species are described from Polynesia. Lophiodes iwamotoi n. sp. is described from five specimens collected from...

Séret B. & Blaison A., 2010. Conversion factors of sharks and skate commercial species of the French fisheries. Communication (poster) presented at the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Annual Science Conference, Nantes, France 20-24 September, 2010.

The case of a fatal, unprovoked shark attack is reported and analyzed. The incident took place on the 30th of September 2007, in the lagoon of Luengoni Bay, Lifou Island (Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia). A young French woman who was snorkeling was severely bitten on the right thigh and died of hemorrhage. An analysis based in particular on the size...

Galeus atlanticus is a small-sized deepwater catshark living on the slope bottom of the Alborán Sea. Given its external similarities with Galeus melastomus, both species are often confused, which makes G. atlanticus a very poorly understood species both in terms of catches and biological aspects. For this study, a total of 741 G. atlanticus specime...

A new righteye flounder, Poecilopsetta multiradiata, is described from eight specimens (two males and six females) collected from deep waters (336–408m) around New Zealand and New Caledonia (South-West Pacific). This new species is distinguished from its 14 congeners by the following combination of characters: high numbers of dorsal (70–73) and ana...

New Caledonia appears as a wintering ground for Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias) that arrive from the South around June in the track of humpback whales and leave around MArch. The feeding on deep spawning aggregations of snappers may explain why this species remains so long after the departure of whales in December. GWS are responsible fo...

Set of 4 posters on shark and ray species of the French fisheries. Raies côtières, Raies de profondeur, Requins côtiers et pélagiques, Requins de profondeur.

This study on EU shark fin catching, processing and trade practices, and their global significance. was undertaken to contribute to the current debate on strengthening the EU Finning Regulation. Since the world’s first shark finning prohibition was introduced in 1993, various methods for enforcing such bans have been tested. Over the past five yea...

Lophiodes infrabrunneus Smith and Radcliffe, 1912 is redescribed on the basis of all known specimens. The species is redefined as: a species of Lophiodes with three dorsal spines, postcephalic spines absent; illicium relatively short, 13.3- 24.2% of SL; second and third dorsal spine relatively short, 12.2-21.2% and 9.1-20.6% of SL respectively, a n...

Lophiodes infrabrunneus Smith and Radcliffe, 1912 is redescribed on the basis of all known specimens. The species is redefined as: a species of Lophiodes with three dorsal spines, postcephalic spines absent; illicium relatively short, 13.3– 24.2% of SL; second and third dorsal spine relatively short, 12.2–21.2% and 9.1–20.6% of SL respectively, a n...

The species diversity of the four major Eastern Boundary Upwelling Ecosystems (EBUEs) is studied and compared with the aim of better understanding their functioning. Functional groups (FGs) of organisms were defined according to their taxonomy, body size and trophic level (TL), and span from plankton to top predators. Four large sub-divisions are d...

A new arhynchobatid skate of the genus Notoraja is described from five specimens collected on the slopes of the Norfolk Ridge between 1195 and 1313 m depth. The new species is distinct from its sibling species from southern Australian waters, the Blue Skate (N. azurea), by its smaller size, several morphometric and meristic characters, thorn patter...