A stocky gray shark of 1.5 to 2 m (5 to 6.5 ft), sometimes larger, with a pointed snout, a white band along the flank and black tips on the pectoral, dorsal and lower tail fins. It is fast, nervous and social, and it moves in loose groups through shallow coastal water rather than along the reef wall.
Like its close relative the Spinner Shark it feeds by charging vertically through schools of small fish and leaving the water, though it turns fewer times in the air. It is a specialist on sardines, herring and other schooling prey, which puts it wherever bait is concentrated and makes it excitable around speared fish. Away from food it keeps its distance.
This species produced the first confirmed case of virgin birth in a shark. A female kept without any male for years produced a pup whose DNA contained nothing but hers, ruling out stored sperm and proving that a shark egg can develop from the mother's genetic material alone. Several species have since been shown to do it. The offspring carry half the genetic diversity of a normal pup, so it is a last resort rather than a strategy, but it means an isolated female is not necessarily a dead end.
Slow reproduction, coastal nurseries and heavy fishing across the range leave it Vulnerable.
How to recognise it
black tips on pectoral, dorsal and lower tail fins
The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Working Group on Elasmobranch Fishes report (ICES 2013) acknowledges the presence of this species in the ICES region, but does not mention it in any catch or landings analyses, indicating an extremely rare encounter rate. It is occasionally caught in the Mediterranean Sea driftnet fishery (Walker et al. 2005).
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
Comments
Please, sign in to leave a comment
Continue with a social account — yours will be created automatically.
