Tiger shark
Galeocerdo cuvier
Tiger sharks are striking, patterned ocean wanderers. With a respectful, experienced guide, a sighting can be one of the most memorable moments underwater.
Near Threatened (IUCN, 2018) means it is close to becoming threatened.
Photos show the species, not always the places on this page.
Length
Usually 3.25 to 4.25 m (10 to 14 ft); can exceed 5.5 m (18 ft)
Weight
Usually 385 to 635 kg (850 to 1,400 lb); can exceed 900 kg (2,000 lb)
Next to a person
About two to two and a half times as long as an adult person, and as heavy as roughly 5 to 9 adults
What it eats
Almost anything: sea turtles, rays, other sharks, bony fish, seabirds, squid, crustaceans and dead animals.
Around people
Potentially dangerous, respect
How it lives
The tiger shark is a mostly solitary hunter that feeds mainly at night, often moving inshore and towards the surface to hunt. Groups form around food rather than for social reasons. Females give birth to 10 to 82 live pups after a pregnancy of 13 to 16 months.
Where it goes
Many tiger sharks travel far, and some move with the seasons between tropical and cooler waters. Bermuda-tagged sharks made round trips of over 7,500 km a year, and a female tagged in Cabo Verde swam 17,901 km to Brazil and back. Off the eastern United States, the main catch area has moved more than 400 km north since the 1980s as the water warms.
Populations
At Fuvahmulah, Maldives, researchers identified 239 tiger sharks between 2016 and 2023, and 84.5% were female. This large, mostly female group is linked to daily feeding by people through the year. Ultrasound there found embryos in 26 of 28 adult females scanned (93%), so scientists see it as a pregnancy ground for the species. Not every shark there is pregnant, and group size and sex ratio differ from place to place.
Meet it respectfully
Some tiger shark encounters happen at sites where operators feed or bait sharks, such as Fuvahmulah, and we say this openly. Ocean Calling never feeds, baits or chums wildlife. Dive only with experienced guides, stay close to the reef or seabed and keep the shark in view. Never touch or hand feed. Rules differ by country, so follow local law and your guide.
Fun fact
Tap the bulb to light it up.
Off Kona in 2024, tiger sharks shared a whale carcass with oceanic whitetips for about 8.5 hours.
Scans at Fuvahmulah found embryos of two different sizes at the same time.
Tiger shark pups grow inside the mother without a placenta, which is unusual among their close shark relatives.
A 311 cm female tagged in Cabo Verde swam 17,901 km to waters off Salvador, Brazil, and back again. The study calls it the second-longest recorded movement for the species.
Source: Seymour et al., Frontiers in Marine Science, tiger sharks in the Eastern Central Atlantic
As the ocean warms, tiger sharks in the western North Atlantic are moving north. The area with the most catches has shifted more than 400 km since the 1980s, and for each 1°C of warmer water the sharks arrived about 14 days earlier.
Tiger sharks carrying cameras helped scientists map the seagrass of the Bahamas banks, which the study estimates at at least 66,000 km2 and up to 92,000 km2, the largest known seagrass system.
At Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, tiger shark sightings peaked 28 days before the peak number of young albatrosses leaving the island for the first time.
Observers on Atlantic longline boats recorded 2,764 tiger sharks from 1992 to 2013, and most records fell outside the published range maps. Tiger sharks use the open ocean much more than people once thought.
One tiger shark tagged at Bermuda was followed for 1,101 days, the longest track for the species at the time.
Follow its journey
Choose a journey and watch it travel. Every line comes from satellite tracking or documented research, and the source is named.
StartEndJourney (the line joins documented areas; real paths vary)
Tiger 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.
Travel with usComing soonTrusted referralExploringOn pause, story onlyEthics pass
Country colour: pink where we travel, blue where we are exploring or refer, grey for story only.
Australia
The Bahamas
Bangladesh
Belize
Brazil
Cabo Verde
Cayman Islands
Colombia
Costa Rica
Ecuador
Egypt
Faroe Islands
Fiji
France
French Polynesia
Germany
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Jamaica
Japan
Madagascar
Maldives
Marshall Islands
Mexico
Mozambique
New Caledonia
Norfolk Island
Oman
Papua New Guinea
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Réunion
Saudi Arabia
Seychelles
Solomon Islands
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Taiwan
Thailand
Turks and Caicos Islands
United Kingdom
United States
US Virgin Islands
VenezuelaRead more about the tiger shark
Sources for this page
- Florida Museum of Natural History, 2026
- FishBase, 2018
- Florida Museum of Natural History, 2026
- Vossgaetter et al., 2024
- The Shark Trust, 2026
- Lea et al., 2015, Scientific Reports
- Seymour et al., 2025, Frontiers in Marine Science
- NOAA Fisheries, 2022
Facts checked 24 September 2026. Photos: Unsplash licence, or Creative Commons as shown on each photo.
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