---
title: Zebra Shark (Stegostoma tigrinum)
scientific_name: Stegostoma tigrinum
common_name: Zebra Shark
taxon: Zebra sharks
conservation_status: EN - Endangered
published: 2024-01-04T09:35:37.853Z
updated: 2026-08-11T19:55:48.589Z
tags: Zebra Shark, Stegostoma tigrinum, Zebra sharks, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/sharks/zebra-sharks/zebra-shark
---

# Zebra Shark (*Stegostoma tigrinum*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Zebra sharks (*Stegostomatidae*)
- **Size:** up to 3.5 m
- **Depth:** 1-62 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sand and rubble beside coral reef, resting on the bottom by day
- **Reproduction:** Egg case
- **Conservation status:** EN - Endangered

## How to recognise it

- five long ridges down a cylindrical body
- tail nearly half the total length, held low
- adults cream with dark spots, juveniles brown with pale bars
- lies motionless on sand, propped on the pectoral fins

A slow, flexible bottom shark, usually about 2.5 m (8 ft) and recorded to 3.5 m (11.5 ft), pale tan and covered in dark spots, with five long ridges running down a cylindrical body and a tail that makes up nearly half the total length. It spends the day lying motionless on sand, propped on its pectoral fins, facing into the current with its mouth working.

The two common names are both right and both wrong. Newborns are dark brown with pale vertical bars, which is where zebra comes from; adults are cream with dark spots, which is why half the world calls the same animal a leopard shark. The change happens at about 50 to 90 cm (20 to 35 in), and the two forms were originally described as different species.

At night it goes into the reef. The long body works like a probe, pushing into crevices too small for the head of any other shark that size, and the animal sucks snails, crabs and small fish out of holes. Females lay large dark egg cases anchored to rock by tufts of adhesive fiber, which is unusual in a group where live birth is the rule.

This species produced one of the best documented cases of virgin birth in a vertebrate. A female kept without a male for years, having previously bred normally, began laying viable eggs that hatched into healthy pups carrying only her genes. Switching from sexual to asexual reproduction after a normal reproductive life had not been shown in any shark before, and it changed what population biologists assume about isolated females. The species is Endangered across its range.

## Also known as

- **English:** Indo-Pacific Leopard Shark, hark with tiger-like spots, leopard shark
- **Arabic:** Thalab al bahar, قِرش عَنَّابي, baglul
- **French:** requin zèbre
- **Turkish:** zebra kopekbaligi
- **Portuguese:** tubarào zebra
- **Japanese:** トラフザメ, Torafuzame
- **Russian:** Зебровая акула
- **ID:** Hiu belimbing
- **MAR:** shinvala
- **TAM:** corungun sorrah, oorookoolti sorrah, pollee makum
- **TEL:** kongarasi
- **TGL:** butanding
- **TH:** Chalam sue gao

## Scientific synonyms

- *Scyllia quinquecornuatum* van Hasselt, 1823
- *Scyllium heptagonum* Rüppell, 1837
- *Squalus cirrosus* Gronow, 1854
- *Squalus fasciatus* Hermann, 1783
- *Squalus longicaudus* Gmelin, 1789
- *Squalus pantherinus* Kuhl & van Hasselt, 1852
- *Squalus tigrinus* Forster, 1781
- *Squalus tygrinus* Bonnaterre, 1788
- *Squalus varius* Seba, 1759
- *Stegastoma fasciatum* (Hermann, 1783)
- *Stegastoma varium* Garman, 1913
- *Stegostoma carinatum* Blyth, 1847
- *Stegostoma fasciata* (Hermann, 1783)
- *Stegostoma fasciatum* (Hermann, 1783)
- *Stegostoma fasciaturn* (Hermann, 1783)
- *Stegostoma fasciatus* (Hermann, 1783)
- *Stegostoma tigrinum naucum* Whitley, 1939
- *Stegostoma tigrinurn* (Forster, 1781)
- *Stegostoma tigrinus* (Forster, 1781)
- *Stegostoma varium* Garman, 1913
- *Stegostoma varius* Garman, 1913

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/sharks/zebra-sharks/zebra-shark)*
*Updated: August 11, 2026*