Dusky smooth-hound Dusky smooth-hound The dusky smooth-hound ("Mustelus canis"), also called the smooth dogfish or the dog shark, is a species of houndshark in the family Triakidae. This shark is an olive grey or brown in color, and may have shades of yellow or grayish white. Females live to 16 years and males have a lifespan of 10 years. "M. canis" was the first shark recognised to have viral infections. "M. canis" can be known as smooth dogfish, Atlantic smooth dogfish, dusky smooth-hound, grayish, nurse shark, smooth dog, or smooth-hound. It was originally named "Squalls canis". In Latin, "mustelus" translates to weasel
Slender smooth-hound numerous unique traits. More recently, he and other taxonomists have increasingly tended to group "Gollum" and "Pseudotriakis" together in the family Pseudotriakidae. This arrangement was corroborated by a 2006 phylogenetic study by Juan Andrés López and colleagues, which found that the two genera have a high degree of genetic similarity across four protein-coding genes and form a natural clade apart from "Proscyllium". An additional species of "Gollum" has now been described, and there is at least one additional species yet to be described. The range of the slender smooth-hound is restricted to the upper and middle continental slope around New