 In 1785, German naturalist Marcus Elieser Bloch described a shark that he referred to "Squalus zygaena" (a synonym of "Sphyrna zygaena", the smooth hammerhead).French zoologist Georges Cuvier, as a brief footnote to the account of "S. zygaena" in his 1817 "Le Règne animal distribué d'après son organisation, pour servir de base à l'histoire naturelle des animaux et d'introduction à l'anatomie comparée", observed that Bloch's specimen (which he labeled ""z. nob.Blochii"") was not a smooth hammerhead, but rather a different species.