 The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed this species as Near threatened.This fish is also known as "mori" in Goa 

The first scientific description of the spadenose shark was published in 1838 by the German biologists Johannes Peter Müller and Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle, in their "Systematische Beschreibung der Plagiostomen".The holotype is presumed to be a -long stuffed specimen in the Zoologisches Museum of Berlin.