Biology of the silky shark Carcharhinus falciformis (Carcharhinidae) in the eastern Indian Ocean, including an approach to estimating age when timing of parturition is not well defined

Biological data were recorded for 1265 silky sharks Carcharhinus falciformis collected from fish landing sites in eastern Indonesia. These represented catches taken in most calendar months by gillnetting and longlining in the eastern Indian Ocean and contained individuals ranging from embryos to fully mature adults. The growth zones in centra, which were shown to form annually, were counted in the vertebrae in a sub-sample of 200 fish for ageing...