The ocean’s least picky big shark, second in fatal bites
Galeocerdo cuvier, sole living galeocerdonid, is a mostly nocturnal coastal hunter whose menu spans turtles, snakes, birds, dolphins, and junk. Females can top five metres. It ranks behind only the great white in recorded fatal attacks on people—still vanishingly rare events.
Péron and Lesueur described it in 1822 as Squalus cuvier; Müller and Henle’s 1837 Galeocerdo mixes Greek galeos (shark) and kerdo (fox). Adults commonly run 3.5–4.7 metres and 300–900 kilograms, with an IGFA record of 810 kilograms; among living sharks only whale, basking, and great white average larger, making tigers the second-largest dedicated predators. Sideways-hooked serrated teeth saw through shell and bone and recycle constantly.
Countershaded grey-blue to green-grey backs hide them from above and below. A nictitating membrane and tapetum lucidum sharpen night hunts. Nomadic tracks follow warm currents, lingering near coasts and the equator in cool months; Fuvahmulah in the Maldives hosts the largest documented aggregation, at least 239 photo-identified individuals. Long fins lift; the upper lobe powers sudden bursts.
That catholic diet and coastal habit explain both ecological importance and uneasy human overlap. Yet statistics still undercut panic: fatal encounters remain exceptional compared with the shark’s daily work recycling carrion and mid-sized prey across tropical shelves.
Coastal habit plus trash-tolerant jaws built the “wastebasket” reputation, yet the same generalism keeps reef and lagoon food webs honest by pruning weak turtles and carrion. Warm-current nomadism means a shark photographed at Fuvahmulah may cruise remote atolls months later. Sideways tooth tips are engineering for shell, not spectacle. Respect without hysteria fits the data: a wide-ranging apex mesocarnivore whose rare conflicts with swimmers still dominate headlines.
Source: Tiger shark
