Critically Endangered
Oceanic whitetip shark
Carcharhinus longimanus
The oceanic whitetip shark is a large requiem shark inhabiting the pelagic zone of tropical and warm temperate seas.
Appearance
The shark's snout is rounded and its eyes are circular, with nictitating membranes. The species is grey-bronze dorsally and white ventrally, being countershaded. Along with white tips, the fins may be mottled, and young specimens can have black marks.
The largest specimen ever caught measured at more than 4 m (13 ft) in length, though they usually grow up to 3 m (10 ft) in length and 150 kg (330 lb) in weight. Even so, the all-tackle record listed by the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) is 167 kg (368 lb) for a 2.2-metre (7.2 ft) long individual, suggesting that weight is likely much more in larger individuals.
Range and habitat
This shark is found worldwide between 45°N and 43°S latitude. It lives in deep, open oceans, with a temperature greater than 18 °C (64 °F), It prefers water temperatures above 20 °C (68 °F), and up to 28 °C (82 °F) but can also be found in waters as cool as 15 °C (59 °F) but avoids temperatures lower than this. It was once extremely common and widely distributed, and still inhabits a wide band around the globe. Even so, recent studies suggest that its numbers have drastically declined.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The species is typically solitary, though they may gather in large numbers at food concentrations. Bony fish and cephalopods are the main components of its diet and females give live birth.
In crisis
The IUCN Red List considers the species to be critically endangered. As with other shark species, the whitetip faces mounting fishing pressure throughout its range, with recent studies show steeply declining populations as they are harvested for their fins and meat. Oceanic whitetip sharks are mainly threatened by fisheries, sometimes intentional but usually as bycatch.
Bycatching of oceanic whitetip sharks may be reduced by removing hooks from longliners when they are in shallow water. This species may also be threatened by pollution. Sharks in the northwest Atlantic have been found to accumulate high amounts of mercury.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Oceanic whitetip shark is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Oceanic whitetip shark, Wikidata item Q318090. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
