Australian Angelshark, Squatina australis

Plate 34. Angel-fish, Rhina squatina (now known as Angelshark, Squatina australis) found at Hobson's Bay

If sailors be good judges of the matter, this fish must be very like an angel, for the Italian fishermen call it "Angelo," the French "Squale ange," and the English-speaking seamen in Britain and America call it commonly "Angel-fish" or "Angel-shark." If the likeness exists at all, it must be quite strong in our Victorian specimens, of which I have had five or six preserved for the Museum collection, all caught in Hobson's Bay, and clearly identical with the common English examples of the species; although, with its small power of swimming, and habit of keeping on the bottom, it is difficult to see how it could pass over so great a space, unless indeed, like some few dog-fish brought up from the dredges in the "Challenger," it may have kept at the bottom all the way. It is a very voracious creature, all our specimens being full of various bottom-keeping fish, as well as Gasteropodous shells…The color varies a little, some of the specimens being brown, and others more greenish than the usual color mentioned above. The skin was formerly used in Europe for polishing wood and ivory work.