Finetooth shark

How it lives

It lives close to shore in bays, lagoons and estuaries, in water usually no deeper than about 10 m in summer and 20 m in winter, and forms large schools. It gives birth to live young after about 12 months. Litters are 2 to 6 pups, born every other year, according to one source. The oldest recorded age is about 22 years. It has never been linked with an attack on a person.

Where it goes

It moves with the seasons. Sources describe movements between the Carolinas and warmer southern waters, and a move away when the surface water drops below about 20 C (68 F).

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

Global: Near Threatened (IUCN, 2019). Its slow breeding and shallow coastal home make it easy to overfish. In US waters NOAA reports the stock as not overfished and not subject to overfishing (2007 assessment), and gillnet bans in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas have helped. Records from the eastern Atlantic, such as Senegal, are unconfirmed, so the West African countries in the Atlas may rest on misidentified records. I found no population counts for Brazil.