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Relationships of the N.Z. Squaloidea
Phillipps' (1946) and Whitley (1940) regard the New Zealand and Australasian squaloids as highly endemic. Of the ten species they list in the New Zealand fauna, six are given as occurring in New Zealand only, while the remaining four are shared only with Australia. None are classed as having a widespread or cosmopolitan distribution.
Considering that the majority of the New Zealand squaloids occur in moderately deep water, and very few are shelf species, it is unlikely that a high proportion of such a mobile fauna should be restricted in its distribution. This is borne out in the present revision, where only two species, Etmopterus baxteri and Scymnodalatias sherwoodi have not been taken as yet outside New Zealand. E. baxteri is known from the continental slope, in 480–780 fathoms, so it is not unreasonable to expect that it may have a wider distribution. Scymnodalatias sherwoodi is known from one beachcast specimen, but its facies suggest it is a deep-water species.
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The remaining twelve species are all more or less widespread in their distribution except for Scymnodon plunketi and Oxynotus bruniensis which appear to be confined to New Zealand and Australia.
Two species, Squalus blainvillii and Echinorhinus brucus, are virtually cosmopolitan, occurring in both the Pacific and Atlantic north and south, though not yet known off the Pacific coast of North and Central America. I have no personal experience of E. brucus in our waters, but retain it in the list only on the basis of a mounted skin in the Otago Museum labelled “Dunedin. April, 1887.” Squalus acanthias is similarly widespread but does not occur in tropical or subtropical waters.
Centrophorus squamosus, Deania calcea and Dalatias licha are known from the Pacific north and south, and from the north Atlantic, but have yet to be taken in the south Atlantic.
New Zealand species so far restricted to the Indo-Pacific are Centroscymnus owstonii, Etmopterus lucifer and Echinorhinus cookei.
The remaining species to be mentioned, Centroscymnus crepidater, has perhaps the most curious distribution, being known only from the eastern north Atlantic as well as from New Zealand. But this is unlikely to be its real distribution, and as it is a deep-water species (420–500 fathoms in New Zealand) it will almost certainly be recorded elsewhere.