A blunt-headed bottom shark with barbels at the mouth, lying under ledges and in sand channels by day, often several together.
To about 3 m, brown, with a broad flattened head, a small mouth set well back under the snout, a pair of barbels, and two large dorsal fins set well back. It is the shark lying in a heap under a Caribbean ledge, often with three or four others.
It is docile in the ordinary sense, and it is the shark with the most recorded bites on divers in the region, because docile animals get touched. It feeds by suction with a very strong bite, and it grips: the recorded incidents are people who pulled a tail or tried to move one, and the animal did not let go. Look at it, photograph it, and leave it where it is.
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.