Whitetip reef shark

The whitetip reef shark is a small, slender shark that spends its days resting in reef caves, making it one of the easiest sharks for divers to find asleep in plain sight.

Also known as: triaenodon obesus, blunt-head shark, blunthead shark, light-tip shark, reef whitetip, reef whitetip shark, white tip reef shark, white-tip reef shark, white-tip shark, whitetip shark

This shark is easily confused with the blacktip reef shark and the grey reef shark, the two other common sharks on Indo-Pacific reefs. The clear giveaway is the white tip on the first dorsal fin and the tail, which the other two species lack.

This is a slim-bodied shark with a short, broad head and a flattened, blunt snout. In front of the nostrils are small flaps of skin curled into tubes. The eyes are small and oval, with vertical pupils and a ridge above each one. The mouth slants downward at the corners, giving the shark a permanently grumpy expression. The first dorsal fin sits well back on the body, closer to the pelvic fins than the pectoral fins, and there is no ridge between the first and second dorsal fins. The second dorsal fin and the anal fin are both fairly large, and the tail fin has a short lower lobe and a longer upper lobe with a deep notch near its tip. As its name suggests, it has white tips on the first dorsal fin and the upper part of the tail. It commonly reaches about 1.6 m, with a maximum length of about 2.1 m.

Whitetip reef sharks live on coral reefs across the Indo-Pacific, from the East African coast to the central Pacific islands. They favour reef flats, channels, and areas near caves and overhangs, usually staying between about 8 and 40 m deep, though they can be found as deep as 330 m.

This shark spends most of the day resting inside caves or under ledges, often lying singly or in small groups, sometimes stacked on top of one another. It becomes active mainly at night or around slack tide, when it hunts along the reef. Whitetip reef sharks are strongly attached to a home area and often stay on the same stretch of reef for years rather than moving far.

The whitetip reef shark's slender body lets it wriggle into narrow crevices and holes in the reef to reach prey that other reef sharks cannot get to. It feeds mainly on bony fish such as eels, snappers, and parrotfish, along with octopuses, spiny lobsters, and crabs. Hunting happens mostly after dark, when groups of sharks methodically search the reef, though each shark still hunts for itself.

Whitetip reef sharks give birth to live, free-swimming young after a long gestation. Mating takes place on the seabed, and litters are small.

generally not aggressive toward divers — observe calmly

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  Blacktip reef shark

  Carcharhinus melanopterus

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  Blue shark

  Prionace glauca

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  Bull shark

  Carcharhinus leucas

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  Grey Reef Shark

  Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos

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  Lemon Shark

  Negaprion brevirostris

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  Oceanic Blacktip Shark

  Carcharhinus limbatus