Requiem shark

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Requiem sharks
Temporal range: Valanginian–Recent[1]
Tiger shark.jpg
A Tiger shark, Galeocerdo cuvier
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Subclass: Elasmobranchii
Superorder: Selachimorpha
Order: Carcharhiniformes
Family: Carcharhinidae
D. S. Jordan & Evermann, 1896
Blacktip reef shark, Carcharhinus melanopterus
Spinner shark, Carcharhinus brevipinna, from the Gulf of Mexico
Galapagos shark, Carcharhinus galapagensis
Lemon shark, Negaprion brevirostris, at Tiger Beach, Bahamas
Blue shark, Prionace glauca

Requiem sharks, Carcharhinidae, are a family of sharks in the order Carcharhiniformes, containing migratory, live-bearing sharks of warm seas (sometimes of brackish or fresh water) such as the spinner shark, the blacknose shark, the blacktip shark, the blacktail reef shark, and the blacktip reef shark.

The name may be related to the French word for shark, requin, itself of disputed etymology (chien de mer or Latin requiem ("rest"), which would thereby create a cyclic etymology: requiem-requin-requiem).[2]

Family members have the usual carcharhiniform characteristics. Their eyes are round, and the pectoral fins are completely behind the five gill slits. Most species are viviparous, the young being born fully developed. They vary widely in size, from as small as 69 cm (2.26 ft) adult length in the Australian sharpnose shark, up to 5.5 m (18 ft) adult length in the tiger shark.[3]

Requiem sharks are responsible for a large proportion of attacks on humans; however, due to the difficulty in identifying individual species, a degree of inaccuracy exists in attack records.[4]


The 60 species of requiem shark are grouped into 12 genera:[3]

† = extinct


  1. ^ Guillaume Guinot, Henri Cappetta and Sylvain Adnet (2014). "A rare elasmobranch assemblage from the Valanginian (Lower Cretaceous) of southern France". Cretaceous Research 48: 54–84. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2013.11.014. 
  2. ^ "Requiem Shark" by Erik Tierney (accessed 28 November 2007).
  3. ^ a b Compagno, L.J.V. Family Carcharhinidae - Requiem sharks in Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2010. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication, version (10/2013).
  4. ^ ISAF Statistics on Attacking Species of Shark[dead link]

External links[edit]