Photo: Jerome Paillet (IFREMER, Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, Centre Bretagne - ZI de la Pointe du Diable - CS 10070 - 29280 Plouzané) · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Description
- 📏 up to 1.6 m
- 🌊 reef cavities, lagoon and slopes, 5 to 40 m
- 🛡️ Vulnerable (IUCN)
The whitetip reef shark is a small, slender shark with a flattened head and white tips on the dorsal fin and tail. By day it sleeps motionless under coral heads or in caves, which is unusual for a shark, since most must keep swimming to breathe. At night it hunts fish in the holes of the reef.
Did you know?
Divers often find it asleep under an overhang, perfectly still: a peaceful sight, far from the image of the fierce shark.
Source: Common dive observation
Tahitian names: TAXREF (INPN/MNHN) – Society Islands. French name: Requin à pointe blanche du lagon.
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