Shark biodiversity in the Sea of Marmara: departures and arrivals over a century

The oldest records on the sharks of the Sea of Marmara are limited to a few notes on two great white sharks, Carcharodon carcharias , which were caught in the southern part of the Bosphorus Strait by the bluefin tuna ( Thunnus thynnus ) handliners in February and November of 1881 (Fergusson, 1996: Appendix 3, 345). A review of the shark-specific or general ichthyology studies of the Sea of Marmara, as well as of the daily newspapers published since the beginning of 1900s, providing information on the capture of sharks in Marmaric waters, revealed the historical and contemporary occurrence of 21 shark species in the Sea of Marmara. The contemporary occurrence of 13 of the 21 species in the Sea of Marmara has been confirmed by recent studies and fishery records. Recent studies showed that the fish fauna of the Sea of Marmara comprises 235 species, 13 of which are shark species, with the confirmed contemporary occurrences of sharks representing 5.53% of the total ichthyofauna.