The least specialised of the large sharks, with a blunt head, faded vertical bars and teeth built for cutting through turtle shell.
To about 5 m, grey with vertical bars down the flanks that are strong in juveniles and fade with age but rarely disappear entirely. The head is broad and blunt, the snout very short, and the teeth are unlike any other shark’s: broad, curved and heavily serrated with a deep notch, the same shape in both jaws, and built for cutting through turtle shell.
It is the least specialised feeder among the large sharks and the stomach contents are famous for it — turtles, seabirds, rays, other sharks, and a long list of things that are not food. It works shallow water at night and deeper water by day, and it is normally solitary. In diving terms it is uncommon everywhere on this site: an occasional animal at a channel mouth in the Maldives, over a reef edge in the Coral Sea, or off a wall in the Red Sea. It is one of the few sharks a briefing will take seriously, and the reason is that it investigates rather than passing: it approaches steadily, comes back, and does not startle. Keep it in sight, stay vertical and off the bottom, and do not turn your back on it.
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.