摘要：We reviewed literature on the diet of the <i>Galeus melastomus</i> Rafinesque, 1810, from the Mediterranean Sea. Specific keywords (“<i>Galeus melastomus</i> diet”, “feeding habits”, “trophic position”, “biology”, “deep environment adaptation”) in the principal data sources, such as Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar were used. Seventeen studies conducted on the diet and trophic position of <i>G. melastomus</i> have been considered for Mediterranean Sea regions. The feeding habits have been analyzed in many areas of the western basin; instead, for the Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, and central Mediterranean Seas, information is outdated and fragmentary. In all investigated sub areas, the data showed that <i>G. melastomus</i> is an opportunistic demersal supra benthic predator, benthic feeder, and scavenger, that adapts its diet to the seasonal and geographical fluctuations of the prey availability. It occupies a generalist niche showing individual specialization. In all reviewed Mediterranean sub areas, the most important prey groups were crustaceans, cephalopods, and teleost fishes. Taxa percentage in its diet composition can vary depending on different habitats with ontogenetic development of individuals, depth (that is correlated with the ontogenetic development), seasonal availability, and distribution of different prey groups. Widening knowledge of <i>G. melastomus</i> feeding habits is a fundamental tool for better understand meso and bathy-pelagic ecosystems.
