The Almuñécar municipal aquarium now has an extra resident; a pintarroja or dogfish shark (Squalidae).

It might not be the only one because the aquarium team is keeping on eye on other eggs, waiting for them to hatch.

“In the Acuario de Almuñécar we have three male sharks and three female ones,” explained the manager, Kira Salvia, adding that the eggs had been found attached to artificial sea vegetation and were immediately transferred into quarantine where optimum parameters are maintained to provide the best hatching conditions.

Two biologists were on hand to help it out of its egg and already the baby dogfish is eight centimetres long. When it’s big enough to fend for itself, it will be returned to the larger tanks.

Kira Salvia explained that the dogfish shark (Scyliorhinus Canicula) is one of the smallest species of shark, growing to one metre in length and weighing about three kilos.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)