Black dogfish to the clade formed by the granular dogfish ("C. granulatum") and combtooth dogfish ("C. nigrum"). The black dogfish is a common species, with a wide but discontinuous distribution in the temperate waters of the Atlantic Ocean; its range abuts, but does not extend into, the Arctic Ocean. In the northeast, it occurs from Iceland to Sierra Leone, including the Faroe Islands, southern Norway, and the Rockall Trough and Porcupine Seabight off Ireland. In the northwest, it is found from southern Greenland and Baffin Island to Virginia, being particularly abundant in the Laurentian Channel, and may occur further south to the
Rockall "Two Royal Marines and a civilian naturalist, led by Royal Navy officer Lieutenant Commander Desmond Scott, raised a Union flag on the island and cemented a plaque into the rock". Prior to this the island was legally "terra nullius". In 1972, the British Island of Rockall Act formally annexed Rockall to the United Kingdom. The UK considers the island administratively part of the Isle of Harris and, under the Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundaries Order 1999 a large sea area around it was declared to be under the jurisdiction of Scots law. A navigational beacon was installed on the island in