Carcharhinidae

Whitetip reef shark

Triaenodon obesus

White fins resting by day hunting at night

• Black
• Gray
• White
• Tropical
• Nearshore
• Globally widespread
• Marine fish
• Fusiform
• Large
• Tropical fish

A slender, sinuous frame tipped with brilliant snow-white highlights defines the whitetip reef shark as a quintessential resident of shallow coral ecosystems across the tropical Indo-Pacific. Its elongated greyish-brown body displays a flattened head, blunt snout, and distinctive tubular nasal barbels, accented by bright white caps on the first dorsal fin and upper caudal lobe. Unlike pelagic requiem sharks that require constant swimming to breathe, it possesses specialized spiracular and buccal pumping mechanics that allow it to lie motionless on sandy cave floors for hours during bright daylight. Distributed from South Africa and the Red Sea across Oceania to the eastern Pacific around Central America, it frequents shallow lagoon passages, reef drop-offs, and caverns from one to forty meters depth. At night, it becomes an extraordinarily flexible predator, wriggling through narrow limestone labyrinths and crevices to extract sleeping damselfishes, parrotfishes, moray eels, and octopuses. Viviparous with litters of one to five pups, its maximum total length reaches two hundred and thirteen centimetres.

Sources: Florida Museum — Whitetip Reef Shark, Triaenodon obesus