Growing up to 50 cm (20 in) long, this small, slim shark has a narrow head with a short blunt snout, no grooves between the nostrils and mouth, and furrows on the lower but not the upper jaw.

It is also characterized by extremely rough skin and coloration consisting of a series of dark brown saddles along its back and tail, along with various darker and lighter spots in larger individuals.

These activities do not appear to have negatively affected its population, leading it to be listed under Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The original description of the cloudy catshark was published in 1908 by Shigeho Tanaka in the Journal of the Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo.

He gave it the specific epithet torazame, which is its Japanese name (虎鮫, literally "tiger shark"), and assigned it to the genus Catulus.

The medium-sized eyes are horizontally oval, equipped with rudimentary nictitating membranes (protective third eyelids), and followed by moderate spiracles.

[4][5] The cloudy catshark is common in the northwestern Pacific off Japan, Korea, China, and possibly the Philippines.

[11] The female is capable of storing sperm within her nidamental gland (an organ that secretes egg cases) for many months.

[14][15] On September 25, 1995, Masuda Motoyashi and colleagues used this species to perform the first successful artificial insemination of a shark or ray.

Captured individuals are typically discarded, possibly with a high survival rate due to their hardiness.

[1] The bottom trawl fishery operating off Fukushima Prefecture may catch over a ton of cloudy catsharks annually, which are also discarded.

[16] Despite heavy fishing pressure within its range, the cloudy catshark remains common, perhaps because it may be more biologically productive than most other sharks.

[1] Cloudy catsharks from a number of locations off Japan have been found to be contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDEs), which they acquire from their food.