Creature Feature – Tiger Shark
This week is the letter ‘R’, and today’s featured creature is the Tiger Shark.
A large ground shark species, this species is famous for it’s characteristic vertical bars that cover the sides of its body.
Taxonomy
Scientific Name: Galeocerdo cuvier
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: Carcharhiniformes
Family: Galeocerdonidae
Genus: Galeocerdo
Tiger Shark Fact File
Size: Individuals can grow up to 5.5m long and weigh 900kg, making them one of the largest shark species
Distribution: This species can be found worldwide, in tropical to temperate latitudes
Diet: Famous for eating just about anything they can capture, tiger sharks are known to eat different fishes and invertebrates, seabirds, sea turtles, marine mammals, rays, smaller sharks, sea snakes, scavenged dead animals, among many other things!
Behaviour: An aggressive predator, they tend to live in shallow coastal waters (but have been observed at 350m deep) and are solitary, mostly nocturnal hunters
IUCN Status: Near-threatened. This is primarily due to targeted (finning) and accidental catch in fisheries
