Lemon shark
Negaprion brevirostris
Size, compared with you
You: 1.7 m. Lemon shark: 3.4 m.
Bigger than a car. Grows up to about 3.4 m.
A yellow-brown shark of warm, shallow water, the colour of a lemon peel. Young lemon sharks grow up in sheltered places like mangrove shallows.
The weird bit
Scientists have studied the lemon sharks of Bimini in the Bahamas since 1967. It is probably the best-known shark population in the world.
Quick facts
- Where it lives
- Coral reef, Coast and shallows, Rivers and estuaries0 to 92 m down
- What it eats
- Mostly fish eaten at night, plus crustaceans, rays and molluscs
- How worried are we?
- In trouble (Vulnerable)Assessed in 2020 by the IUCN Red List.