---
title: Dusky Shark (Carcharhinus obscurus)
scientific_name: Carcharhinus obscurus
common_name: Dusky Shark
taxon: Requiem shark
conservation_status: EN - Endangered
published: 2024-11-03T22:25:26.224Z
updated: 2026-08-14T11:57:50.916Z
tags: Dusky Shark, Carcharhinus obscurus, Requiem shark, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/sharks/requiem-shark/dusky-shark
---

# Dusky Shark (*Carcharhinus obscurus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Requiem shark (*Carcharhinidae*)
- **Size:** 4 m
- **Weight:** 350 Kg
- **Depth:** 10-400 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Coastal and offshore water over the shelf, down to deep water
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer
- **Hazard:** Dangerous
- **CITES:** Appendix II
- **Conservation status:** EN - Endangered

## How to recognise it

- short rounded snout and long sickle-shaped pectoral fins
- ridge of skin between the dorsal fins
- faintly dusky fin tips, otherwise plain
- large and heavy-bodied, over 4 m

A big, plain, streamlined shark reaching over 4 m (13 ft) and 350 kg (770 lb), gray-bronze above with faintly dusky fin tips, a short rounded snout and long sickle pectoral fins. There is no single field mark: it is identified by proportion, and by the ridge of skin between its dorsal fins.

It is one of the slowest-living sharks in the sea. Females mature at about twenty years old, carry their pups for 22 to 24 months - a gestation matched among vertebrates only by elephants and a few deep-water sharks - and then rest a full year before breeding again. That is a three-year cycle producing perhaps ten pups, from an animal that has to survive two decades to start.

Do the arithmetic and the conservation story writes itself. A population fished at even a modest rate cannot replace itself, and recovery, once collapsed, takes generations rather than years: stocks in the western Atlantic protected since the 1990s are still measured in fractions of their former size. The species is Endangered.

Adults range from the coast out over the shelf and down to 400 m (1,300 ft), migrating with temperature, eating almost anything, including other sharks. Encounters with divers are uncommon and usually well offshore.

## Also known as

- **English:** dusky shark, Brown common gray shark, Black Whaler Shark
- **Hebrew:** כריש עפרורי
- **French:** requin obscur, Requiem de sable, Requin de sable
- **Italian:** Squalo bruno, Squalo scuro
- **German:** düsterer Hai, Blauhai, Schwarzhai
- **Spanish:** jaquetón lobo, Tiburón lobo, tiburón arenero, tiburón gambuso
- **Greek:** Σκοτεινόχρωμος καρχαρίνος
- **Turkish:** esmer köpekbalığı
- **Portuguese:** Tubarão-faqueta
- **Dutch:** Schemerhaai
- **Polish:** Zarlacz ciemnoskóry, żarłacz ciemnoskóry
- **Czech:** žralok velrybář
- **Japanese:** ドタブカ, Dotabuka
- **Chinese:** 大沙, 灰真鯊(暗體真鯊), 灰色白眼鮫
- **Russian:** Сумеречная акула, Тёмная акула
- **AF:** Gryshaai
- **DA:** Mørkhaj
- **FI:** Sumuhai
- **LT:** baltapelekis pilkasis ryklys
- **TH:** ปลาฉลามสีหมึก

## Scientific synonyms

- *Carcharhinus iranzae* Fourmanoir, 1961
- *Carcharhinus obscurella* Deng, Xiong & Zhan, 1981
- *Carcharias macrurus* Ramsay & Ogilby, 1887
- *Carcharinus iranzae* Fourmanoir, 1961
- *Carcharinus obscurus* (Lesueur, 1818)
- *Eulamia obscura* (Lesueur, 1818)
- *Galeolamna eblis* Whitley, 1944
- *Galeolamna greyi* Owen, 1853
- *Galeolamna macrurus* (Ramsay & Ogilby, 1887)
- *Prionodon obvelatus* Valenciennes, 1844
- *Squalus obscurus* Lesueur, 1818

## Range

Djibouti, Gulf of Mexico, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, New Zealand, North Atlantic Ocean, South Africa

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/sharks/requiem-shark/dusky-shark)*
*Updated: August 14, 2026*