FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



37 



some have a placental connection between mother 

 and embryo, but others do not. 



Tiger shark Galeocerdo cuvier (LeSueur) 1822 



Leopard shark 



Bigelow and Schroeder, 1948, p. 266. 



Description. — The tiger shark is characterized 

 among the Atlantic members of its family by the 

 forward position of its first dorsal fin (origin about 

 over the arm pit of the pectorals), combined with 

 a caudal peduncle with a low longitudinal ridge 

 of skin on either side, besides a well-marked 

 semilunar pit below as well as above; a very small 

 second dorsal fin; a furrow, about as long as the 

 snout along either side of the upper jaw; a very 

 slender-tipped caudal fin with moderately large 

 and pointed lower lobe; and large teeth alike in 

 the two jaws, of very characteristic shape, with 

 convex inner margins, deeply and conspicuously 

 notched outer margins and strongly serrate edges 



(fig. ID- 



Young tiger sharks arc rather slender, but 

 they become very heavy forward, with growth, 

 though they continue tapering toward the tail. 

 The first dorsal fin is high, triangular, and nearly 

 as large as the pectorals, while the second dorsal 

 is hardly one-third to one-fourth as high as the 

 first and stands over the anal, which is of about 

 equal size. The lower tail lobe is almost half as 

 long as the upper, the rear margin of which is 

 notched near the tip. The large size of the 

 head, with very short, obtusely rounded front 



outline, and broad mouth occupying nearly 

 four-fifths of the width of the head, with long 

 grooves along the upper jaw, combined with the 

 unique shape of its teeth, make the "tiger" easy 

 to recognize among Gulf of Maine sharks. 



Color. — Gray, or grayish brown, darkest on 

 the upper surface. Young "tigers" up to 5 or 6 

 feet long, are more or less conspicuously spotted 

 or barred with darker brown on the back and along 

 the upper parts of the sides. But these markings 

 fade with advancing age until large specimens 

 are plain colored, or nearly so. 



Size. — Tiger sharks are small at birth, corre- 

 sponding to the large numbers in a litter, free 

 living specimens having been reported only 

 18 to 19 inches long. By the time they mature 

 they are among the larger sharks; but their size 

 has often been overestimated. The majority 

 of tigers caught in centers of abundance are less 

 than 12 to 13 feet long, and the largest measured 

 lately in the western Atlantic was one of about 

 18 feet, from Cuba. Repeated statements that 

 the tiger grows to a maximum length of 30 feet 

 have no reliable foundation, so far as we can 

 discover. 



A 4-foot specimen from Woods Hole weighed 

 25% pounds when taken from the water. Larger 

 tigers vary widely hi weight at given lengths 

 depending on how fat they are and on the stage 

 of development of the young in gravid females. 

 Specimens from various localities have weighed 

 37 pounds at 5)2 feet; 168 pounds at 6 feet; 366 to 

 718 pounds at 10 to 11 feet; 450 to 825 pounds 

 at 11 to 12 feet; 630 to 1,324 pounds at 12 to 13 



Figure 11. — Tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), young male, about 49 inches long, Rhode Island. A, upper tooth, and 

 B, lower tooth of larger specimen, enlarged. From Bigelow and Schroeder. Drawings by E. N. Fischer. 



