Blacktip reef shark
Carcharhinus melanopterus
Shy, shallow-water reef sharks and the homebodies of tropical lagoons. Their pups can spend their first months in tiny nursery areas.
Vulnerable (IUCN, 2020) means it is at high risk of extinction in the wild.
Photos show the species, not always the places on this page.
Length
Usually about 1.6 m (5.2 ft); up to about 2.0 m (6.6 ft)
Weight
Typical adult weight not reliably measured; largest recorded about 13.6 kg (30 lb)
Next to a person
A typical adult is nearly as long as a person is tall; the largest are a little longer
What it eats
Mostly small bony fish, plus squid, octopus, cuttlefish, shrimp and crabs.
Around people
Defensive if pressured
How it lives
Blacktip reef sharks live on shallow reefs, alone or in small groups. They eat mostly small fish, plus squid, octopus, cuttlefish, shrimp and crabs. They are timid and skittish, and usually keep their distance from divers. Pregnant females often return to the same nursery areas to give birth.
Where it goes
Blacktip reef sharks are mostly resident and stay close to home. At Palmyra Atoll, sharks in the lagoons had a 49% chance of staying there and less than 0.1% chance of moving to the back reefs. At Moorea, most pregnant females give birth at their home island, but some cross up to 50 km of deep ocean to another island, and many females go back to the same nursery.
We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.
Populations
Populations on different reef systems are genetically distinct, as shown among the islands of French Polynesia. Because the sharks stay close to home, numbers can differ sharply between nearby atolls. There are no named subspecies.
Meet it respectfully
Never feed, chase, block or corner a shark. Stay calm and give it room to pass, and give young sharks in shallow nursery areas extra space. Do not spearfish or carry fish near it. Bites are rare and mostly involve people wading in very shallow water, so keep hands and feet clear.
Fun fact
Tap the bulb to light it up.
The dark pattern on each shark's dorsal fin can be used to recognise individual sharks.
Research at Moorea found that shark feeding for tourism can change the sharks' health and how much females invest in their young.
The blacktip reef shark and the blacktip shark are two different species.
Blacktip reef sharks mostly eat fish, but studies in northern Australia recorded them eating land snakes and sea snakes too.
Source: Florida Museum of Natural History, 2018, Blacktip reef shark profile
In French Polynesia, a blacktip reef shark spends about 70% of its year in an area of only 0.3 square kilometres. Home is a small patch of reef.
Source: Florida Museum of Natural History, 2018, citing Mourier & Planes 2013
Blacktip reef shark in the Ocean Atlas
Places we have researched where this animal is recorded. It is never guaranteed, and some places are for watching from the boat only.
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American Samoa
Australia
Chagos (British Indian Ocean Territory)
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Comoros
Egypt
Faroe Islands
Fiji
France
French Polynesia
Guam
India
Indonesia
Japan
Kenya
Kiribati
Malaysia
Maldives
Mauritius
Micronesia (FSM)
Myanmar
New Caledonia
Northern Mariana Islands
Oman
Palau
Papua New Guinea
Philippines
Saudi Arabia
Seychelles
Singapore
Solomon Islands
Sri Lanka
Tanzania
Thailand
Tokelau
Tuvalu
United Arab Emirates
United StatesRead more about the blacktip reef shark
Sources for this page
- FishBase, 2020
- Florida Museum of Natural History
- Vignaud et al., 2013
- Mourier & Planes, 2013
- Reef Check, 2019
- ISRA factsheet, Palmyra Atoll Lagoons
- ISRA factsheet, Haapiti, Moorea
- Lionnet et al., 2025, Journal of Fish Biology
- Mills et al., 2025, Animal Conservation
Facts checked 26 September 2026. Photos: Unsplash licence, or Creative Commons as shown on each photo.
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