FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 78, NO, 2 



Figure 6. — Galeocerdo cuvier, 2,410 mm PCL, 3,055 mm TL, 175 kg, Enewetak, Marshall Islands. 



The stomachs of the other two sharks were empty. 

 Three other tiger sharks from Enewetak had food 

 in their stomachs. One of 3,150 mm TL contained 

 shark vertebrae. The second of 3,581 mm TL had 

 the scutes of a green turtle and bird feathers. The 

 third, 3,048 mm TL, was filled with pieces of a 

 porpoise and the digested remains of shark fins. 



A tiger shark of 3,327 mm TL from Ua Huka, 

 Marquesas Islands, was empty, as was one of 2,895 

 mm TL from Oahu. Another from Oahu of 3,048 

 mm had an extremly distended stomach filled with 

 heads of skipjack tuna (neatly cut by a knife, hence 

 probably discarded from a fishing boat), plastic 

 bags of garbage and aluminum foil, a cat, and two 

 small reef fishes (one a balistid). It also contained 

 the bait (the head of a calf). A 3,100 mm specimem 

 weighing 174.6 kg taken by a set line at night at 

 Rapa had eaten parts of a tiger shark larger than 



itself (probably from an individual caught on 

 another hook), as well as a seabird. 



Triaenodon obesus (Riippell) (Figure 7): The 

 whitetip reef shark, once classified by most 

 ichthyologists in the family Triakidae, is now re- 

 corded as a carcharhinid (Compagno 1973). In 

 spite of its scientific name, it is rather slender 

 compared with most species of the family. Apart 

 from its slim form and white-tipped first dorsal fin 

 and upper caudal lobe, T. obesus is distinctive in 

 its very blunt snout and teeth which bear a small 

 cusp on each side of the main central one. It is 

 widespread throughout the tropical and subtropi- 

 cal Indo-West Pacific region and ranges to the 

 eastern Pacific as well. Banner and Helfrich 

 (1964) and Brock et al. (1965) have reported this 

 species as poisonous from Johnston Island. 



Figure T .—Triaenodon obesus, 1,218 mm PCL, 1,520 mm TL, 23.5 kg, Tahiti, Society Islands. 



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