Sand Tiger Shark

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Chondrichthyes

Order: Lamniformes

Family: Odontaspididae

Genus: Carcharias

Species: C. taurus

The **sand tiger shark** (*Carcharias taurus*), **grey nurse shark**, **spotted ragged-tooth shark** or **blue-nurse sand tiger**, is a species of shark that inhabits subtropical and temperate waters worldwide. It first appears in “True Lovin’”

## Description

Adult sand tigers range from 2 m (6.6 ft) to 3.2 m (10.5 ft) in length and 91 kg (201 lb) to 159 kg (351 lb) in weight. The head is pointy, as opposed to round, while the snout is flattened with a conical shape. Its body is stout and bulky and its mouth extends beyond the eyes. The eyes of the sand tiger shark are small, lacking eyelids. A sand tiger usually swims with its mouth open displaying three rows of protruding, smooth-edged, sharp-pointed teeth. The males have grey claspers with white tips located on the underside of their body. The caudal fin is elongated with a long upper lobe (i.e. strongly heterocercal). They have two large, broad-based grey dorsal fins set back beyond the pectoral fins. The sand tiger shark has a grey-brown back and pale underside. Adults tend to have reddish-brown spots scattered, mostly on the hind part of the body. In August 2007, an albino specimen was photographed off South West Rocks, Australia.[7] The teeth of these sharks have no transverse serrations (as have many other sharks) but they have a large, smooth main cusp with a tiny cusplet on each side of the main cusp. The upper front teeth are separated from the teeth on the side of the mouth by small intermediate teeth.

## Taxonomy

The sand tiger shark's description as *Carcharias taurus* by Constantine Rafinesque came from a specimen caught off the coast of Sicily. *Carcharias taurus* means "bull shark". This taxonomic classification has been long disputed. Twenty-seven years after Rafinesque's original description the German biologists Müller and Henle changed the genus name from *C. taurus* to *Triglochis taurus*. The following year, Swiss-American naturalist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz reclassified the shark as *Odontaspis cuspidata*based on examples of fossilized teeth. Agassiz's name was used until 1961 when three palaeontologists and ichthyologists, W. Tucker, E. I. White, and N. B. Marshall, requested that the shark be returned to the genus *Carcharias*. This request was rejected and *Odontaspis* was approved by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). When experts concluded that *taurus* belongs after *Odontaspis*, the name was changed to *Odontaspis taurus*. In 1977, Compagno and Follet challenged the *Odontaspis taurus*name and substituted *Eugomphodus*, a somewhat unknown classification, for *Odontaspis*. Many taxonomists questioned his change, arguing that there was no significant difference between *Odontaspis* and *Carcharias*. After changing the name to *Eugomphodus taurus*, Compagno successfully advocated in establishing the shark's current scientific name as *Carcharias taurus*. The ICZN approved this name, and today it is used among biologists.

## Trivia

* Despite its name, it is not related to the tiger shark *Galeocerdo cuvier.*