''Carcharias'', also known as sand tiger sharks, is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

mackerel shark The Lamniformes (, from Greek ''lamna'' "fish of prey") are an order of sharks commonly known as mackerel sharks (which may also refer specifically to the family Lamnidae). It includes some of the most familiar species of sharks, such as the g ...

s belonging to the family Carchariidae, of which it is the only extant member. Once bearing many prehistoric species, all have gone

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

with the exception of the

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

sand tiger shark The sand tiger shark (''Carcharias taurus''), grey/gray nurse shark (in Australia), spotted ragged-tooth shark (in South Africa), or blue-nurse sand tiger, is a species of shark that inhabits subtropical and temperate waters worldwide. It inhabit ...

Description

''Carcharias'' are long on average. The maximum weight of the shark is . Differentiating species of sharks is usually done by locating and measuring their fins. The tail is one third of the entire body size. The second

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

and the

anal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported o ...

of ''Carcharias'' are very large and about equal in size. The

pectoral fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish aquatic locomotion, swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the vertebral column ...

s are triangular and only slightly larger than the dorsal fins. The teeth are very long and narrow with sharp points, and smooth with no ridges.

Diet

''Carcharias'' species are generalist

predator Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...

s that hunt

bony fish Osteichthyes ( ; ), also known as osteichthyans or commonly referred to as the bony fish, is a Biodiversity, diverse clade of vertebrate animals that have endoskeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondricht ...

, small sharks, rays,

squids A squid (: squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called ''squi ...

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...

s and

lobster Lobsters are Malacostraca, malacostracans Decapoda, decapod crustaceans of the family (biology), family Nephropidae or its Synonym (taxonomy), synonym Homaridae. They have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on th ...

Habitat

Sand tiger sharks are found in the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

and Indian oceans. They live in water depths ranging from , and are commonly found in sandy

surf zone The surf zone or breaker zone is the nearshore part of a body of open water between the line at which the waves break and the shore. As ocean surface waves approach a shore, they interact with the bottom, wave shoaling, get taller and steeper, an ...

Species

With the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

name καρχαρίας (karkharías) literally translating to "shark", many extant species have been placed into this genus before being moved to different genera and orders.

Extant species

Based on ''

Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes Catalog of Fishes is a comprehensive on-line database and reference work on the scientific names of fish species and genera. It is global in its scope and is hosted by the California Academy of Sciences. It has been compiled and is continuously up ...

'': * '' Carcharias taurus''

Rafinesque Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (; 22 October 178318 September 1840) was a French early 19th-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ult ...

, 1810 (sand tiger shark)

Species previously described in this genus

* '' Carcharias acutidens'' Rüppell, 1837 (accepted as '' Negaprion acutidens'') * '' Carcharias borneensis'' Seale, 1910 (accepted as '' Carcharhinus sealei'') * '' Carcharias brachyrhynchos'' Bleeker, 1859 (accepted as '' Carcharhinus amboinensis'') * '' Carcharias brevipinna'' Müller & Henle, 1839 (accepted as '' Carcharhinus brevipinna'') * ''

Carcharias falciformis The silky shark (''Carcharhinus falciformis''), also known by numerous names such as blackspot shark, gray whaler shark, olive shark, ridgeback shark, sickle shark, sickle-shaped shark and sickle silk shark, is a species of requiem shark, in the ...

'' Müller & Henle, 1839 (accepted as '' Carcharhinus falciformis'') * '' Carcharias fronto'' Jordan & Gilbert, 1882 (accepted as ''

Negaprion brevirostris The lemon shark (''Negaprion brevirostris'') is a species of shark from the family Requiem shark, Carcharhinidae, known for its yellowish skin, which inspires its common name. It is classified as a Vulnerable species by the International Union for ...

'') * '' Carcharias hemiodon'' Müller & Henle, 1839 (accepted as '' Carcharhinus hemiodon'') * '' Carcharias sealei'' Pietschmann, 1913 (accepted as '' Carcharhinus sealei'')

Extinct species

Extinct species within this genus lived from the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

period to the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

period (from 99.7 to 0.012 Ma). Fossils have been found all over the world, especially in the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

and

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

sediments of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, in the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

and the

, as well as in the

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, the

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. Species from the fossil record include:

Cretaceous species

* '' Carcharias tenuiplicatus'' * '' Carcharias holmdelensis''

Maastrichtian The Maastrichtian ( ) is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) geologic timescale, the latest age (geology), age (uppermost stage (stratigraphy), stage) of the Late Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or Upper Cretaceous series (s ...

* '' Carcharias samhammeri'' Late Cretaceous * '' Carcharias heathi'' Late Cretaceous

Paleogene species

*'' Carcharias acutissima'' (

Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he recei ...

, 1844) - Late Eocene *'' Carcharias atlasi'' *'' Carcharias hopei'' (

, 1843) - Late Palaeocene - Eocene *'' Carcharias koerti'' (Stromer, 1905) *'' Carcharias robusta''? (Leriche, 1921) - Early Eocene *'' Carcharias teretidens'' - maybe placed into its own genus as ''Sylvestrilamia teretidens'' *'' Carcharias teretidens'' (White, 1931), - Late Palaeocene - Eocene *'' Carcharias tingitana'' (Arambourg, 1952) *'' Carcharias vincenti'' (Woodward, 1899) *'' Carcharias whitei'' (Arambourg, 1952) - Paleocene

Neogene

*'' Carcharias acutissima'' (Agassiz, 1843), Oligocene - Pliocene *'' Carcharias reticulata'' (Probst, 1879), Oligocene - Miocene *'' Carcharias cuspidata'' (Agassiz, 1843), Oligocene - Miocene *'' Carcharias taurus'' Rafinesque, 1810, Pliocene - Present *'' Carcharias cuspidata'' (Agassiz, 1843), Pliocene - Miocene *''Carcharias'' sp. - unidentified but maybe similar to the ''Carcharias contortidens'' as described by Agassiz in 1843, from the Miocene. *'' Carcharias reticulata'' (Kent 1994) maybe classified as ''Odontaspis acutissma'' (Agassiz 1843) from the Miocene.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q578852 Odontaspididae Extant Cretaceous first appearances Shark genera Taxa named by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque Fish genera with one living species