 The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed the nursehound as Near Threatened, as its population in the Mediterranean Sea seems to have declined substantially from overfishing.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".