 When the "Odontaspis" came to be recognized as a valid genus separate from "Carcharias", the bigeye sand tiger was reassigned as well given its resemblance to the smalltooth sand tiger ("O. ferox").Until more specimens were examined in the 1980s, some authors speculated that this species represented an extreme variant of the smalltooth sand tiger.Other names for this shark include black sand tiger, oceanic sand tiger, and bigeye ragged-tooth shark.