Description: The body of the brown smoothhound is elongate, slender, tapering from behind the dorsal fin to the long slender tail. The snout is comparatively long and flattened. The color is brown or bronze above and silvery below. The back one-fifth of the dorsal fin is without scales. The teeth are blunt, without sharp points. The brown and other smoothhounds can be distinguished from the soupfin shark since their second dorsal fins originate well in advance of the beginning of the anal fin; while in the soupfin, the second dorsal begins behind the origin of the anal fin.