Animal Directory Featured species in the planned Aquarium & Marine Realm habitat
Photo: NasserHalaweh CC BY-SA 4.0 Wikimedia Commons
Sand Tiger Shark
Carcharias taurus
Young Explorer Notes
Three quick things to know about the Sand Tiger Shark.
- Superpower
Looks ferocious — rows of ragged needle-like teeth always visible — yet is calm and almost lethargic around divers.
- Home
Shimmering tanks and tunnels under the sea.
- How to help
Critically endangered
Very few are left in the wild. Every rescue and breeding program matters.
Fun facts for everyone
- Looks ferocious — rows of ragged needle-like teeth always visible — yet is calm and almost lethargic around divers.
- The only shark known to swim to the surface and gulp air, storing it in its stomach as a buoyancy float so it can hover motionless.
- Practises intrauterine cannibalism — the strongest embryo in each uterus eats its smaller siblings before birth, so only two pups are ever born.
- Pups develop for about 9-12 months and emerge already 1 metre long, fully self-sufficient hunters.
- IUCN uplisted the species to Critically Endangered in 2020 after a global population decline of more than 80% over three generations.
From the master plan
The Sand Tiger Shark is the planned Aquarium & Marine Realm’s Reef Gallery star — the eye-level shark in the floor-to-ceiling acrylic, perpetually gliding past guests at the underwater tunnel. Its menacing dental display and mellow demeanour are the perfect introduction to how poorly sharks are understood.
IUCN status sourced from the Sand Tiger Shark (Carcharias taurus) assessment (Rigby et al., 2021) on the IUCN Red List — uplisted to Critically Endangered with a continuing population decline.
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