Also, some individuals have been reported in the Gulf of Guascony in Northern France. This species is locally very common in shallow waters throughout the West Indies, south Florida and the Florida Keys. Apart of the eastern Pacific, the nurse shark is absent from the Indo-Pacific area, where other related groups have successfully evolved. The nurse shark is a nocturnal animal that rests on sandy bottoms or in caves or crevices in rock in shallow waters during the day. They occasionally occur in groups of up to 40 individual, as they lie very close together sometimes even piling upon one another.
Nurse sharks are very active during the night.
In addition to swimming near the bottom or well off it, the nurse shark can clamber on the sea floor, using its flexible, muscular pectoral fins as limbs. They often lie in groups within limestone solution holes or under rock ledges. Nurse sharks show a strong preference for certain resting sites, and repeatedly return to the same caves and crevices after a nocturnal activity. Biology Distinctive Features Nurse sharks have two spineless, rounded dorsal fins with the first dorsal fin much larger than second, and one anal fin. The origin of the first dorsal fin is about over the origin of the pelvic fin.