---
title: Spinner Shark (Carcharhinus brevipinna)
scientific_name: Carcharhinus brevipinna
common_name: Spinner Shark
taxon: Requiem shark
conservation_status: VU - Vulnerable
published: 2024-11-03T21:28:45.485Z
updated: 2026-08-14T11:57:51.016Z
tags: Spinner Shark, Carcharhinus brevipinna, Requiem shark, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/sharks/requiem-shark/spinner-shark
---

# Spinner Shark (*Carcharhinus brevipinna*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Requiem shark (*Carcharhinidae*)
- **Size:** 2 - 3 m
- **Weight:** 56 - 90 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-100 m
- **Diet:** Piscivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Open coastal water and current lines, occasionally over reef
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer
- **Hazard:** Dangerous
- **CITES:** Appendix II
- **Conservation status:** VU - Vulnerable

## How to recognise it

- slim body with a long pointed snout
- black tip on the anal fin in adults, which the Blacktip Shark lacks
- first dorsal fin set further back than in the Blacktip Shark
- leaves the water spinning after an attack run

A slim, fast requiem shark of 2 to 3 m (6.5 to 10 ft) with a long pointed snout and black-tipped fins, easily confused with the Blacktip Shark. The separations are technical: the first dorsal fin sits further back, and adults carry a black tip on the anal fin, which the Blacktip does not.

It hunts by corkscrew. Coming up beneath a school of small fish, the shark accelerates vertically through it while spinning on its own axis with the mouth open, snapping as it turns, and the momentum carries it clear of the surface - up to three full rotations in the air before it falls back. The leap is not display or play; it is the exit from an attack run that begins twenty meters down.

That requires the schooling prey to be dense, which is why this is an animal of open coastal water and current lines rather than the reef proper. It is fast, nervous around divers, and not considered dangerous except in the presence of speared fish.

Litters run to twenty pups every second year, dropped in shallow coastal nurseries, which is generous by shark standards and still not enough. Heavy fishing for meat and fins across its range has it listed as Vulnerable.

## Also known as

- **English:** spinner shark, Longnose Grey Shark
- **Arabic:** Jarjur Naudth
- **Hebrew:** כריש קצר-גף
- **French:** Requin tisserand
- **Italian:** Squalo tessitore
- **German:** großer Schwarzspitzenhai, Langnasenhai, Spinnerhai
- **Spanish:** jaquetón picudo, Tiburón de aleta negra, tiburón aleta negra, tiburón curro
- **Greek:** Βραχύπτερος καρχαρίνος
- **Turkish:** sivri camgoz, sivri camgöz
- **Portuguese:** Tubarão-tecelão
- **Japanese:** ハナザメ, Hanazame
- **Chinese:** 大沙, 直齒真鯊, 短鰭真鯊
- **LT:** trumpapelekis pilkasis ryklys

## Scientific synonyms

- *Aprion brevipinna* (Valenciennes, 1839)
- *Aprionodon brevipenna* (Valenciennes, 1839)
- *Aprionodon brevipinna* (Valenciennes, 1839)
- *Aprionodon caparti* Poll, 1951
- *Carcharhinus brevipina* (Valenciennes, 1839)
- *Carcharhinus brevipinnis* (Valenciennes, 1839)
- *Carcharhinus johnsoni* Smith, 1951
- *Carcharhinus maculipinnis* (Poey, 1865)
- *Carcharias brevipinna* Valenciennes, 1839
- *Carcharinus brevipinna* Valenciennes, 1839)
- *Carcharinus johnsoni* Smith, 1951
- *Isogomphodon maculipinnis* Poey, 1865
- *Longmania calamaria* Whitley, 1944
- *Prionidon brevipinna* (Valenciennes, 1839)
- *Squalus brevipinna* (Valenciennes, 1839)
- *Uranga nasuta* Whitley, 1943

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Greece, Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, North Atlantic Ocean, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa

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