Sharks

Atlantic nurse shark

Ginglymostoma cirratum

Atlantic nurse sharks rest on the bottom by day and hunt after dark with powerful suction. Some return to the same mating ground in Florida for decades.

VulnerableIn 38 Atlas countries

Vulnerable (IUCN, 2019) means it is at high risk of extinction in the wild.

Nurse shark swimming over a reef at Fernando de Noronha, Brazil — Photo: R Vasconcellos, iNaturalist, CC BY

Nurse shark resting at the base of a coral reef — Photo: Robin White, iNaturalist, CC BY

Nurse shark cruising over sand in Colombia — Photo: Gonzalo Romero, iNaturalist, CC BY

Nurse shark swimming past reef at Cozumel — Photo: lchaney, iNaturalist, CC BY

Nurse shark lying on the seabed beside a reef — Photo: Matteo Bellucci, iNaturalist, CC BY

Photos show the species, not always the places on this page.

Length

Adults often about 2.3 to 3 m (7.5 to 10 ft); largest well recorded about 3.1 m (10.1 ft), with an older record of 4.3 m (14.1 ft)

Weight

Typical weight not reliably measured; largest published about 110 kg (242 lb)

Next to a person

An adult is about one-and-a-half times as long as a person

What it eats

Mostly bottom animals at night: spiny lobsters, shrimps, crabs, sea urchins, squid, octopus, snails and clams, and fish such as stingrays.

Around people

Defensive if pressured

How it lives

The Atlantic nurse shark is a slow, bottom-living shark of warm Atlantic reefs and sandy shallows. It rests by day, often in groups under ledges, and hunts at night, sucking prey from crevices. Females give birth to 21 to 28 pups. At the Dry Tortugas in Florida, adults gather in June and July to mate.

Where it goes

Nurse sharks are faithful to their mating ground. At the Dry Tortugas, Florida, 137 adults were tagged from 1992 to 2021, and at least 68% of those tagged by 2014 came back in later years. Males arrive each year in May and June, and females every two or three years. Between seasons, some travel several hundred kilometres, to the Florida Keys, the western Bahamas and north to at least South Carolina.

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

The Atlantic nurse shark lives from Rhode Island to southern Brazil, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and in the eastern Atlantic from Cabo Verde and Senegal to Gabon. Nurse sharks on the Pacific coast of the Americas are now treated as a separate species.

Meet it respectfully

Nurse sharks look sleepy, but they can bite hard when grabbed, stepped on or pressured. Never touch, ride, grab or pull them, and do not block or crowd a resting shark. At some sites, like Shark Ray Alley in Belize, guides are allowed to feed sharks to draw them close. Ocean Calling does not feed or bait sharks, even where it is allowed. Feeding sharks while diving or snorkelling is not allowed in Florida state waters.

Fun fact

Tap the bulb to light it up.

Sources for this page

Facts checked 26 September 2026. Photos: Unsplash licence, or Creative Commons as shown on each photo.

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