Skin lesions in the tail of the spiny dogfish, Squalus acanthias L

Few lesions have been reported in elasmobranchs, even though fish such as the spiny dogfish, Squalus acanthias are exploited by the fishing industry and used for dissection in senior biology courses. In this paper a spiny dogfish with a prominently engorged tail with numerous skin lesions (18 in all) was examined. It was a mature female carrying 16 embryos in their second year of development. One of the embryos had a marked developmental abnormality, its spinal cord was severely twisted. Examination provided no evidence that the abnormality of the embryo was in any way linked with the lesions on the females body. Their occurrence together was purely coincidental.