Caribbean Sea
Marine biota in the region have representatives of both the Indian and Pacific oceans which were caught in the Caribbean before the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama four million years ago. In the Caribbean Sea there are around 1,000 documented species of fish, including sharks (bull shark, tiger shark, silky shark and Caribbean reef shark), flying fish, giant oceanic manta ray, angel fish, spotfin butterflyfish, parrotfish, Atlantic Goliath grouper, tarpon and moray eels. Throughout the Caribbean there is industrial catching of lobster and sardines (off the coast of Yucatán Peninsula).
Spined pygmy shark
The spined pygmy shark has a wide distribution around the world. In the Atlantic Ocean, it occurs off Bermuda, the United States, Suriname, southern Brazil, and northern Argentina in the west, and off northern France, Madeira, Cape Verde, and the Azores in the east. In the Indian Ocean, this species has only been recorded off Somalia. In the Pacific Ocean, it is found off southern Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. The spined pygmy shark is found at depths of and seldom approaches the surface, unlike the related pygmy shark and cookiecutter shark ("Isistius brasiliensis"). This shark prefers areas of high biological productivity over upper continental and insular slopes. It may also be found over outer shelves, but avoids central ocean basins. The range of this species does not overlap that of the pygmy shark, which has a similar ecology, and is also largely separate from that of the cookiecutter shark.