A slim spotted shark that spends the day wedged inside the reef.
To about 70 cm, very slender, pale grey-white with dark saddles and dense black and white spotting, a short snout and enlarged nasal flaps. The body is thin enough to enter crevices that a bamboo shark could not.
It rests deep inside coral heads and rock crevices through the day, usually with only part of the body visible, and hunts small fish and invertebrates at night. Encounters are largely a matter of looking into holes on a night dive; it is uncommon at the muck destinations and records are scattered. Females lay paired egg cases. Recorded from about 3 to 30 m; the species is assessed as near threatened and its inshore range overlaps heavily with fishing pressure.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.