Photo: Storm Martin · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Description
- 📏 up to 3 m
- 🌊 caves and coral heads, 5 to 70 m
- 🛡️ Vulnerable (IUCN)
The tawny nurse shark is reddish-brown with two small barbels near its nostrils. Nocturnal, it spends the day resting, often piled up with others under an overhang. It sucks its prey (octopus, fish, sea urchins) out of holes in the reef. Calm and slow, it does not attack, but it should not be touched.
Did you know?
Guides also call it the « sleeper shark »: it spends the day almost motionless in a cave. In Tahitian it is known as maʻo rohoi.
Source: Dive guides; TAXREF vernacular database
Tahitian names: TAXREF (INPN/MNHN) – Society Islands. French name: Requin nourrice fauve.
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