Nurse shark

Ginglymostoma cirratum · The nurse shark is a slow-moving, bottom-dwelling shark found in tropical and subtropical coastal waters of the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific.

Nurse shark
Photo: Stevelaycock21, CC BY-SA 4.0
Nurse shark
Photo: NLEJAH, CC BY-SA 4.0
Nurse shark
Photo: Jakob Owens jakobowens1, CC0

Taxonomy

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumChordata
ClassChondrichthyes
OrderOrectolobiformes
FamilyGinglymostomatidae
GenusGinglymostoma
SpeciesGinglymostoma cirratum

Where it lives

Warm shallow coasts of the western Atlantic, Caribbean, West Africa and eastern Pacific.

Fun facts

  • Nurse sharks suck up prey with some of the strongest suction forces ever recorded in any aquatic vertebrate.
  • If a food item is too big, a nurse shark can spit it back out or violently shake its head to break it apart.
  • A single nurse shark litter can contain between 21 and 29 pups after a six-month pregnancy.
  • One nurse shark litter was found to have 14 different genotypes, meaning the pups had multiple fathers.

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The Nurse shark was the creature in a regional daily on November 12, 2026. Can you identify tomorrow's from its photos? Every day brings a new creature to place from kingdom to genus, map and name.

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Facts and taxonomy adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).