Blacktip Shark

The Blacktip Shark is a somewhat large species of requiem shark.

Size and Weight
Blacktip sharks can grow to about 9 feet, but their average size is around four or five feet long. The maximum known weight of a Blacktip Shark was 271 lbs.

Description
Blacktip Sharks are greyish-brown on the tops of their bodies (often with a white stripe along the side) and white on the bottom. They have black coloration on the tips of most fins, giving them their name. Their bodies are streamlined with a long and pointed snout.

Range and Habitat
These sharks are common in tropical and subtropical shallow waters worldwide. They can be found along the North American and South American coastlines (as far north as New England and as far south as southern Brazil) and along some of the African coastline in both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. They are very common to the Caribbean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. In the Pacific Ocean, there have been sightings of the shark along much of the Asian coastline, in Australia, Indonesia, and many small Pacific island countries.

Prey
The Blacktip mainly feeds on fish like sardines, herring, sea catfish, mullet, triggerfish, mackerel, groupers, and grunts. Other prey includes smaller sharks (usually Smoothhounds) and some crustaceans. The excitability of this shark when food is introduced into the water causes them to have many feeding frenzies and some shark attacks, although fatal bites by the Blacktip are almost unheard of.