Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Spot­ted wobbe­gong are gen­er­ally found in in­shore wa­ters off the south­ern and south­east­ern coasts of Aus­tralia, from the Fre­man­tle re­gion in West­ern Aus­tralia to More­ton Is­land in south­ern Queens­land (Pol­lard et al, 2003). Some sources in­di­cate that spot­ted wobbe­gong have a global dis­tri­b­u­tion that in­cludes Japan­ese wa­ters and the South China Sea (Eagle, 2005). How­ever, the World Con­ser­va­tion Union states that these records are prob­a­bly in­cor­rect and are most likely the re­sult of dif­fi­culty in dis­tin­guish­ing spot­ted wobbe­gong from other, closely re­lated, species. If so, spot­ted wobbe­gong should be con­sid­ered en­demic only in the Aus­tralian re­gions de­scribed above (Pol­lard et al, 2003). (Eagle, 2005; Pol­lard, et al., 2003)

• Biogeographic Regions
• pacific ocean
  • native

Habi­tat

Spot­ted wobbe­gong are bot­tom-dwelling sharks found in ma­rine en­vi­ron­ments rang­ing from tem­per­ate to trop­i­cal. Their main habi­tat con­sists of in­shore areas near the con­ti­nen­tal shelves, from the in­ter­tidal zone down to depths of 110 me­ters (Pol­lard et al, 2003). More specif­i­cally, spot­ted wobbe­gong in­habit coral and rocky reefs, es­tu­ar­ies, sea­grass beds, coastal bays, and areas with sandy bot­toms. They are a pri­mar­ily noc­tur­nal species, and are found in caves, under the over­hangs of rocky and coral reefs, and in ship­wrecks dur­ing the day. Ju­ve­niles are com­monly found in es­tu­ar­ies and sea­grass beds. There has been lim­ited ev­i­dence for site at­tach­ment, and it is quite com­mon to find a spot­ted wobbe­gong in water barely deep enough to cover its body (Eagle, 2005). (Eagle, 2005; Pol­lard, et al., 2003)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical
• saltwater or marine

• Aquatic Biomes
• benthic
• reef
• coastal

• Other Habitat Features
• estuarine
• intertidal or littoral
• caves

• Range depth

  0 to 110 m

  0.00 to 360.89 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The av­er­age spot­ted wobbe­gong ranges in length be­tween 150 and 180 cen­time­ters (59-71 inches) in total length. Males usu­ally ma­ture at around 60 cen­time­ters (24.6 inches). The largest recorded spot­ted wobbe­gong was mea­sured at 360 cen­time­ters (126 inches). At birth, the av­er­age new­born is 21 cm (8.3 inches) (Eagle. 2005). (Eagle, 2005)

Spot­ted wobbe­gongs be­longs to the Order Orec­tolob­i­formes, com­monly called car­pet sharks be­cause of their ruf­fled, rug-like ap­pear­ance (Dewey et al., 2005). The col­oration pat­tern of spot­ted wobbe­gongs pro­vides cam­ou­flage against the vary­ing color pat­terns of the en­vi­ron­ment it in­hab­its. They are gen­er­ally a pale yel­low or green-brown with large, dark areas down the mid­line of the body. White "O"-shaped spots often cover the en­tire back of the shark. Al­though other species of Orec­tolo­bidae fam­ily are usu­ally sim­i­lar in ap­pear­ance, the col­oration pat­tern of spot­ted wobbe­gong is dis­tinc­tive (Eagle, 2005). (Myers, et al., 2005; Eagle, 2005)

Be­sides the dis­tinc­tive color pat­tern, spot­ted wobbe­gong are eas­ily iden­ti­fied by their flat­tened heads, pos­sess­ing six to ten der­mal lobes below and in front of the eyes, and hav­ing long nasal bar­bels around the mouth and on the sides of head (“UN Atlas of the Oceans”, 2005). The bar­bels are some­times branched basally. The mouth lies in front of the eyes with two rows of fang-like teeth in the upper jaw and three in the lower jaw. Spot­ted wobbe­gongs can also be char­ac­ter­ized by their large spir­a­cles, a lack of der­mal tu­ber­cles or ridges on the back, a sym­phisial groove on the chin, and na­so­ral and cir­cum­nar­ial grooves. The dor­sal fins are spine­less and the first be­gins over the pelvic base with the anal fin orig­i­nat­ing be­hind the sec­ond dor­sal fin. The pec­toral and pelvic fins are large and broad, and the cau­dal fin is much shorter than the rest of the body (Com­pagno, 2002). ("UN Atlas of the Oceans", 2005; Com­pagno, 2002)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• heterothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Range length

  60 to 320 cm

  23.62 to 125.98 in

• Average length

  165 cm

  64.96 in

• Average basal metabolic rate

  unknown cm3.O2/g/hr

De­vel­op­ment

Spot­ted wobbe­gong, like most other sharks, con­tinue to grow through­out their lives and at a rel­a­tively slow pace (Eagle, 2005). (Eagle, 2005)

• Development - Life Cycle
• indeterminate growth

Re­pro­duc­tion

Lit­tle is known about the nat­ural breed­ing sea­son of spot­ted wobbe­gong but, in cap­tiv­ity, breed­ing usu­ally oc­currs dur­ing July (Com­pagno, 2002). This may or may not be in­dica­tive of the nat­ural breed­ing sea­son and fur­ther re­search is nec­es­sary. Dur­ing breed­ing sea­son, the males are at­tracted to chem­i­cal pheromones re­leased into the water by fe­males. Dur­ing cop­u­la­tion, the male will bite the fe­male in the gill re­gion, and use his mod­i­fied pelvic fin, called a clasper, to in­sert sperm into the cloaca (Eagle, 2005). In cap­tiv­ity males fight fiercely over op­por­tu­ni­ties to court fe­males, but it re­mains un­clear if this male-male com­pe­ti­tion oc­curs among wild pop­u­la­tions (UN Atlas of the Oceans, 2005). Un­for­tu­nately, lit­tle is known about the mat­ing sys­tem of spot­ted wobbe­gong, but based on their be­hav­ior dur­ing breed­ing sea­son, in­clud­ing the male-male com­pe­ti­tion, it would not be un­ex­pected if they are a polyg­y­nous species. ("UN Atlas of the Oceans", 2005; Com­pagno, 2002; Eagle, 2005)

• Mating System
• polygynous

Spot­ted wobbe­gong are ovo­vi­vip­a­rous, mean­ing the eggs de­velop within the ma­ter­nal body with­out ad­di­tional nour­ish­ment from the par­ent and hatch within the par­ent or shortly after lay­ing. Pups are un­nour­ished while de­vel­op­ing in­side the mother and often eat un­fer­til­ized eggs as well as other pups. Lit­ter sizes are usu­ally large, with over twenty pups on av­er­age, the high­est num­ber of pups ever re­ported was 37 from a sin­gle fe­male (Com­pagno, 2002). The young leave their mother al­most im­me­di­ately after birth, often to avoid being eaten by her. Lit­tle is known about the length of ges­ta­tion for spot­ted wobbe­gong, but the max­i­mum for the Orec­tolo­bidae fam­ily is 2 years. The av­er­age age at mat­u­ra­tion for both male and fe­male wobbe­gongs is un­known. (Com­pagno, 2002)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
  • internal
• ovoviviparous

• Breeding interval

  Breeding intervals in spotted wobbegong are unknown.

• Breeding season

  Breeding occurs primarily in July in captivity.

• Range number of offspring

  37 (high)

• Average number of offspring

  20

• Range gestation period

  24 (high) months

All parental in­vest­ment among spot­ted wobbe­gongs is made by the fe­male, and all in­vest­ment oc­curs while the young are still de­vel­op­ing in­side the mother. New­born pups are im­me­di­ately in­de­pen­dent after birth and are ca­pa­ble of fend­ing for them­selves (Com­pagno, 1984). (Com­pagno, 1984)

• Parental Investment
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • protecting
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Lit­tle is known about the lifes­pan of spot­ted wobbe­gong. How­ever, based on in­for­ma­tion about sharks in gen­eral, it is pre­sumed that spot­ted wobbe­gong are rel­a­tively long lived an­i­mals. They fall prey to only a few preda­tors, out­side of hu­mans, and,, as long as suf­fi­cient prey is avail­able, spot­ted wobbe­gongs should live long, healthy lives.

Be­hav­ior

Spot­ted wobbe­gongs are rather slug­gish when com­pared to other species of sharks. They are often found com­pletely mo­tion­less on the sea floor and re­main in­ac­tive for ex­tended pe­ri­ods of time (Com­pagno, 2002). They are a noc­tur­nal species and spend most of the day rest­ing. Their cryp­tic col­oration pat­tern al­lows them to re­main rel­a­tively un­no­ticed. Pre­lim­i­nary ob­ser­va­tions in­di­cate site speci­ficity among some spot­ted wobbe­gongs, with some in­di­vid­u­als re­turn­ing to the same site alone, as well as some groups of around a dozen in­di­vid­u­als re­turn­ing to­gether. In gen­eral, spot­ted wobbe­gong ap­pear to be a soli­tary species, but at times do con­gre­gate in groups. (Com­pagno, 2002)

Spot­ted wobbe­gong feed pri­mar­ily at night, and may swim along the bot­tom in a man­ner sim­i­lar to nurse sharks (Ging­ly­mostom­ati­dae) (Com­pagno, 2002). It re­mains un­clear if spot­ted wobbe­gong are ac­tive, prowl­ing hunters or am­bush preda­tors that sit and wait for un­sus­pect­ing prey to get too close. Some wobbe­gongs have been ob­served sneak­ing up to bait items as if stalk­ing, but this may not be the pri­mary mode of hunt­ing for live prey. (Com­pagno, 2002)

• Key Behaviors
• natatorial
• nocturnal
• motile
• sedentary
• solitary

Home Range

Spot­ted wobbe­gong do not ap­pear to have a spe­cific home range, how­ever as men­tioned above, some site at­tach­ment has been ob­served (Com­pagno, 2002). More re­search is nec­es­sary to ex­plore this ques­tion fur­ther. (Com­pagno, 2002)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Spot­ted wobbe­gongs sense their en­vi­ron­ment with both chem­i­cal and vi­sual cues. The only form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion yet doc­u­mented among spot­ted wobbe­gongs takes the form of chem­i­cal pheromones re­leased by fe­males dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son (Eagle, 2005). Fe­males use the pheromones to at­tract po­ten­tial mates. (Eagle, 2005)

Most sharks are ca­pa­ble of sens­ing their en­vi­ron­ment through elec­trore­cep­tion. Most have elec­trosen­sors called am­pul­lae of Loren­zini sit­u­ated in clus­ters around the head that can sense the weak elec­tri­cal cur­rents as­so­ci­ated with the func­tion­ing of nerves and mus­cles of liv­ing an­i­mals (Car­rier, 2005). The pres­ence of these am­pul­lae in spot­ted wobbe­gong has yet to be con­firmed, but it is pre­sumed they pos­sess elec­trore­cep­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties. (Car­rier, 2005)

• Communication Channels
• chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual
• chemical
• electric

Food Habits

Spot­ted wobbe­gong, like most sharks are car­niv­o­rous and feed pri­mar­ily on bot­tom dwelling in­ver­te­brates (Com­pagno, 2002). Their in­ver­te­brate prey in­cludes crabs, lob­sters, and oc­to­pus (Camp­bell, 2005). Spot­ted wobbe­gong also prey on some bony fishes in­clus­ing Ser­ranidae (sea bass), Scor­paenidae (scor­pi­onfishes), and Kyphosi­dae (lud­er­ick). They may also prey on other, smaller shark species, in­clud­ing in­di­vid­u­als of their own species, as well as some ray species. (Com­pagno, 2002; Wu, 1994)

Spot­ted wobbe­gong ap­pear to feed pri­mar­ily by sit­ting and wait­ing for un­sus­pect­ing prey that may even nib­ble on the shark’s der­mal lobes be­fore the shark will strike (Com­pagno, 2002). It is be­lieved that the short broad mouth and large broad phar­ynx aids in suck­ing in prey. Based on video footage, prey is sucked into the mouth as the phar­ynx opens and water rushes in. This feed­ing mech­a­nism in spot­ted wobbe­gongs is very sim­i­lar to that of Squa­tinidae (angel sharks) ex­cept that the prey in angel sharks is taken from above as op­posed to in front of the mouth as it is in spot­ted wobbe­gong. (Com­pagno, 2002)

Spot­ted wobbe­gong are more spe­cial­ized for jaw pro­tru­sion than are most other shark species (Wu, 1994). The pala­to­quadrate and Meckel’s car­ti­lage pro­ject an­te­ri­orly and are the major com­po­nent of pro­tru­sion. The move­ment of these two com­po­nents si­mul­ta­ne­ously en­larges the oral cav­ity to gen­er­ate the ma­jor­ity of the suc­tion forces. This extra pro­tru­sion and en­hanced suc­tion force com­bined with the pow­er­ful jaws and mul­ti­ple rows of en­larged fang-like teeth in the upper and lower jaw (Com­pagno, 2002), form a deadly trap that spot­ted wobbe­gongs use to im­pale and kill their prey. (Com­pagno, 2002; Wu, 1994)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • piscivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods

• Animal Foods
• fish
• mollusks
• aquatic crustaceans

Pre­da­tion

Any large fish or ma­rine mam­mal is a po­ten­tial preda­tor of spot­ted wobbe­gong (Eagle, 2005). The most dan­ger­ous preda­tor to spot­ted wobbe­gongs is hu­mans, and if wobbe­gong meat con­tin­ues to gain in pop­u­lar­ity, the sta­bil­ity of the spot­ted wobbe­gong pop­u­la­tion may be in jeop­ardy. Their main anti-preda­tory adap­ta­tion is their cryp­tic col­oration pat­tern, but in ad­di­tion to their cam­ou­flage, spot­ted wobbe­gong can be­come dan­ger­ously ag­gres­sive if at­tacked, and have the abil­ity to se­ri­ously in­jure, if not kill, the at­tacker. (Eagle, 2005)

• Anti-predator Adaptations
• cryptic

• Known Predators

  • Humans Homo sapiens

Ecosys­tem Roles

The main ecosys­tem role played by spot­ted wobbe­gong is as a dom­i­nant preda­tor, prey­ing on the or­gan­isms listed above. They are a prey item for hu­mans and for larger aquatic an­i­mals. Spot­ted wobbe­gong are also a host for a num­ber of par­a­sitic or­gan­isms. Thirty-three species of the on­choboth­riid tet­ra­phyl­liean ces­tode (Ces­toda) are par­a­sitic to its spi­ral in­tes­tine (Eagle, 2005). Also, the ne­ma­tode Echinocephalus over­streeti is a known par­a­site of the spot­ted wobbe­gong. (Eagle, 2005)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Al­though there is a lim­ited amount of in­ter­est in the cre­ation of a spot­ted wobbe­gong fish­ery, they are still com­monly con­sumed by hu­mans (Com­pagno, 2002). The meat is ap­par­ently ex­cel­lent for eat­ing and is mildly pop­u­lar in Aus­tralia and sur­round­ing areas. The tough skin makes very durable, dec­o­ra­tive leather due to the unique pat­tern­ing. Among the scuba div­ing in­dus­try, spot­ted wobbe­gongs are rel­a­tively easy and safe to ob­serve by the av­er­age diver, thus con­tribut­ing to the eco­tourism of the area. (Com­pagno, 2002)

• Positive Impacts
• food
• body parts are source of valuable material
• ecotourism

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Spot­ted wobbe­gong are com­monly caught by trawls and tram­mel nets, and in­side lob­ster nets and pots (UN Atlas of the Oceans, 2005). They are con­sid­ered pests in the lob­ster in­dus­try be­cause they squeeze them­selves in­side lob­ster traps to eat both the bait and the catch. Spot­ted wobbe­gong are rel­a­tively docile sharks, and ap­pear rel­a­tively slug­gish when viewed by divers, but they should still be con­sid­ered dan­ger­ous. They are not gen­er­ally con­sid­ered an ag­gres­sive species of shark, but have been known to bite peo­ple if pro­voked. In most cases, bites re­sult when the shark is stepped on or if some­one steps too close to their mouth and may be mis­taken for prey (UN Atlas of the Oceans, 2005). Spot­ted wobbe­gong will as­suredly be­come ag­gres­sive when speared or caught by nets. Their strong jaw mus­cu­la­ture and im­pal­ing teeth, when com­bined with their ten­dency to hold on after bit­ing, en­ables them to in­flict se­ri­ous dam­age. Sev­eral bites by wobbe­gong, both pro­voked and un­pro­voked, in­clud­ing bites on divers, have been re­ported. There have even been re­ported in­stances of a wobbe­gong bit­ing fish­ing boats; some vic­tims have lost limbs to the bite of a wobbe­gong. How­ever, it is dif­fi­cult to say which wobbe­gong species was re­spon­si­ble or the exact cir­cum­stances that led to these in­ci­dents. ("UN Atlas of the Oceans", 2005)

• Negative Impacts
• injures humans
  • bites or stings

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Ac­cord­ing to the IUCN Species Sur­vival Com­mis­sion, spot­ted wobbe­gong are con­sid­ered near threat­ened, mean­ing the species has been eval­u­ated but does not fit cri­te­ria for crit­i­cally en­dan­gered, en­dan­gered, or vul­ner­a­ble at the cur­rent time (Pol­lard et al, 2003). Spot­ted wobbe­gong are not cur­rently listed on the United States En­dan­gered Species Act list as ei­ther en­dan­gered or threat­ened. The Con­ven­tion of In­ter­na­tional Trade in En­dan­gered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) also gives no spe­cial sta­tus to spot­ted wobbe­gongs. (Pol­lard, et al., 2003)

Spot­ted wobbe­gong are com­monly caught as by­catch and there ap­pears to be low and sta­ble catch lev­els in south­ern and west­ern coastal fish­eries (Pol­lard et al, 2003). How­ever, se­ri­ous de­clines have oc­curred in New South Wales which demon­strates the vul­ner­a­bil­ity of spot­ted wobbe­gongs to ex­ploita­tion. Recre­ational fish­ing does not ap­pear to be a dan­ger­ous threat to spot­ted wobbe­gongs, how­ever spearfish­ers do catch a small num­ber. The po­ten­tial site at­tach­ment of spot­ted wobbe­gongs adds to their vul­ner­a­bil­ity to fish­ing pres­sure. This species has been tar­geted for their dec­o­ra­tive skin pat­tern in the past, but are cur­rently no longer being caught for their skin. (Pol­lard, et al., 2003)

Spot­ted wobbe­gongs may be sus­cep­ti­ble to dam­age to their in­shore coastal habi­tats. Es­tu­ar­ies and sea­grass beds may be home to im­por­tant nurs­ery areas for ju­ve­nile spot­ted wobbe­gongs (Pol­lard et al, 2003). (Pol­lard, et al., 2003)

There is on­go­ing dis­cus­sion re­gard­ing the man­age­ment of spot­ted wobbe­gongs in the New South Wales area, but no man­age­ment plan has yet been put in place (Pol­lard et al, 2003). Cur­rently, there are no species-spe­cific man­age­ment plans in place in other Aus­tralian states. Some spot­ted wobbe­gong habi­tat areas may fall under the pro­tected areas for Car­charias tau­rus (grey nurse sharks) in New South Wales. Spot­ted wobbe­gongs also occur in a few other ma­rine pro­tected areas in New South Wales, in­clud­ing Ju­lian Rocks Aquatic Re­serve, Soli­tary Is­lands Ma­rine Park, Fly Point-Hal­i­fax Park Aquatic Re­serve, and Jervis Bay Ma­rine Park. Very re­cently, an in-pos­ses­sion limit of two spot­ted wobbe­gongs per per­son was in­sti­tuted for recre­ational fish­ers (Pol­lard et al, 2003). (Pol­lard, et al., 2003)

• IUCN Red List

  No special status
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  No special status
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Tanya Dewey (), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Todd Sz­co­dron­ski (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Kevin Wehrly (ed­i­tor, in­struc­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

2005. "UN Atlas of the Oceans" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 6th, 2005 at http://​www.​oceansatlas.​org/​unatlas_​gifs/​offsiteframe.​jsp?​url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.​fao.​org%2Ffigis%2Fservlet%2FFiRefServlet%3Fds%3Dspecies%26fid%3D13943&​ctn=3441&​kot=web-sites.

Camp­bell, D. 2005. "MarineBio" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 17, 2005 at http://​marinebio.​org/​species.​asp?​id=384.

Car­rier, J. 2005. Shark. Mi­crosoft En­carta On­line En­cy­clo­pe­dia. Mi­crosoft Cor­po­ra­tion. Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 07, 2005 at http://​encarta.​msn.​com/​encyclopedia_​761552860_​2/​Shark.​html#​howtocite.

Com­pagno, L. 1984. Sharks of the World. An an­no­tated and il­lus­trated cat­a­logue of shark species known to date. part 1- Hexa­nchi­formes to Lam­ni­formes. FAO Species cat­a­logue, 4/1: 1-249. Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 13, 2005 at http://​www.​fishbase.​org/​Summary/​SpeciesSummary.​php?​id=758.

Com­pagno, L. 2002. Sharks Of The World: An An­no­tated and Il­lus­trated CAt­a­logue of Shark Species Known To Date. FAO Species CAt­a­logue for Fish­ery Pur­poses, No. 1, Vol. 2: 155-157. Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 6th, 2005 at ftp://​ftp.​fao.​org/​FI/​document/​sidp/​x9293E_​SharksVol2/​X9293E00.​pdf.

Eagle, D. 2005. "Ic­thy­ol­ogy at the Florida Mu­seum of Nat­ural His­tory" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 6th, 2005 at http://​www.​flmnh.​ufl.​edu/​fish/​Gallery/​Descript/​SpotWobbegong/​SpotWobbegong.​html.

Myers, P., R. Es­pinosa, S. Parr, T. Jones, G. Ham­mond, T. Dewey. 2005. "An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber, 6th, 2005 at http://​animaldiversity.​ummz.​umich.​edu/​site/​accounts/​classification/​Orectolobiformes.​html#​Orectolobiformes.

Pol­lard, D., I. Gor­don, A. Fla­herty, J. Pogon­ski. 2003. "IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 6th, 2005 at http://​www.​redlist.​org/​search/​details.​php?​species=41837.

Wu, E. 1994. Kine­matic Analy­sis of Jaw Pro­tu­sion In Ore­colob­i­form Sharks - A New Mech­a­nism For Jaw Pro­tru­sion In Elas­mo­branchs. Jour­nal Of Mor­phol­ogy, 222/2: 175-190.