Blacktip reef shark
Carcharhinus melanopterus
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Size, compared with you
You: 1.7 m. Blacktip reef shark: 1.8 m.
Person-sized. Grows up to about 1.8 m.
A common shark of shallow reefs in the Indian and Pacific oceans, with black tips on its fins. You can often see its fin cutting the surface in water only a few metres deep.
The weird bit
At Palmyra Atoll, a blacktip's home range was only about half a square kilometre, among the smallest recorded for any shark.
Quick facts
- Where it lives
- Coral reef, Coast and shallows0 to 75 m down
- What it eats
- Small fish like mullet and wrasse, plus squid, crustaceans and sea snakes
- How worried are we?
- In trouble (Vulnerable)Assessed in 2020 by the IUCN Red List.