 The first scientific description of the nursehound was published by Carl Linnaeus , in the 1758 tenth edition of Systema Naturae . He gave it the name Squalus stellaris , the specific epithet stellaris being Latin for " starry " . No type specimen was designated . In 1973 , Stewart Springer moved this species to the genus Scyliorhinus . The common name " nursehound " came from an old belief by English fishermen that this shark attends to its smaller relatives , while the name " huss " may have come from a distortion of the word " nurse " over time . 
