Whitetip reef shark

How do you identify a whitetip reef shark?

The whitetip reef shark, also called the reef whitetip or blunthead shark, is a small, slender shark: few individuals exceed 1.60 meters, and the known maximum is 2.10 meters and 18 kg. The back is gray to brown, sometimes dotted with small dark spots, and the belly white. The tips of the first dorsal fin and of the upper tail lobe are bright white, and they are how you recognize it from afar. The head is short, broad and flat, with a rounded snout, a large flap of skin rolled into a tube in front of each nostril, and small oval eyes. The teeth are small, each with a narrow cusp flanked by two shorter ones, in 42 to 50 rows in the upper jaw. Its supple body lets it slip into cracks in the coral without getting hurt. Do not confuse it with the oceanic whitetip, a large open-ocean shark with long, rounded fins edged in white.

How does the whitetip reef shark live?

It is the quintessential coral reef shark, found from the Red Sea and East Africa across Southeast Asia, northern Australia and the Pacific atolls to Hawaii, and in the eastern Pacific, from Costa Rica to the Galápagos. It lives almost only on the reef, most often between 8 and 40 meters. By day, it rests in a cave or under an overhang, alone or with others, lying on the sand: it does not need to swim to breathe, because it pumps water over its gills. At night it hunts, often in groups, searching the holes of the reef for bony fish, octopus, spiny lobsters and crabs, and it can go six weeks without eating. It is a homebody: most tracked individuals stay within three kilometers in a year, and the same shark can occupy the same cave for months, even years. The species is viviparous: after 10 to 13 months of gestation, the female gives birth to 1 to 6 pups, usually two or three, 52 to 60 centimeters long. It matures at about 1.10 meters and 8 or 9 years, and it can live more than 25 years.

Where and when can you see whitetip reef sharks?

It is one of the easiest sharks to see on our dive sites, and always the same way: resting under an overhang by day, hunting at night. In the Maldives, it is there all year, resting on the sand and under the overhangs of Kuda Rah Thila, at the foot of Fish Head and on the outer wall of South Ari Atoll, and with the gray reef sharks in the current at Kandooma Thila; at Maaya Thila, 20 to 30 of them hunt on the plateau at night. In Thailand, the boulders and canyons of Elephant Head Rock make it the highlight of the site, from October to May. In Komodo, Castle Rock almost guarantees it on every dive, on its deep flanks. In the Philippines, you find it asleep in the caves of Gato Island, near Monad Shoal, on the deep parts of the Pescador wall and at Apo Island, at Mamsa Point and Rock Point. In the Red Sea, it is more discreet: sometimes on the edge of the north plateau of Panorama Reef, under the overhangs of the gotas at St. John's, and among the eight shark species recorded at Daedalus. At Mnemba Atoll, in Tanzania, it shows up on the deep parts of the reef. In the eastern Pacific, it is abundant: dozens at Manuelita, at Cocos, resting by day and hunting at night; lying between the boulders of Dirty Rock and Bajo Alcyone; about ten in the Cueva del Tiburón at Caño Island, at 14 meters; under the overhangs of the Islas Catalinas, all year round. At Roca Partida, from November to June, the sharks sleep piled up by the dozen in the niches of the east face, and from November to May they patrol around the El Boiler pinnacle with Galapagos sharks.

Is the whitetip reef shark threatened?

The whitetip reef shark has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 2020: its populations are declining under growing fishing pressure that is almost never regulated, and it is often killed for its fins alone, the body thrown back into the sea. With divers, it is fearless and curious, but rarely aggressive: the few known bites mostly targeted spearfishers whose catch it tried to steal, or came from sharks that had been touched or cornered in their cave. So watch it from the side, at a distance, without cutting off its exit or touching it, and skip feeding, which conditions it to come into contact with hands.