270 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



containing 82 young.^° On the other hand, litters as small as lO to 14 have been recorded." 

 Habits. The "Tiger" is found indiflFerently far out on the high seas and in coastwise 

 waters. In tropical and subtropical seas they have been seen pursuing sting-rays on the 

 flats in only a few feet of water and even in harbors; they are caught from the shore; and 

 it is not unusual for them to enter enclosed sounds and river mouths in Florida and North 

 Carolina. Most of the few records of them further north are from pound nets set out 

 from the land in a few fathoms of water only. Except when aroused by the scent of food or 

 other stimuli, the "Tiger" is rather sluggish ; when stimulated, however, it is one of the 

 most vigorous and strong swimming of sharks. In Florida waters, and presumably 

 throughout its normal range, its young may be born at any time of year. 



Although this is perhaps the commonest large shark in the tropics, little more is 

 known about its life history, except for its diet, it being proverbially one of the most 

 voracious of sharks. It is also one of the most omnivorous, for its diet ranges from objects 

 as small as crabs and the smaller migrating land birds that have fallen into the sea to 

 others as big as the larger sea turtles, other sharks, and sea lions." "The large, coarsely 

 serrated teeth are extremely efficient cutting instruments. . . . Bites on large objects are 

 made by a rolling motion with both jaws cutting much in the manner of a saw";"^ and a 

 Tiger Shark has no difficulty in cutting through the shell of a sea turtle. The recorded list 

 of its stomach contents includes crabs (half a bushel of them were taken from a 13-foot 

 specimen in Florida), gastropods (Buccinum, Lunatia), spiny lobsters (Palinurus), horse- 

 shoe crabs (Limulus), squid, a wide variety of fishes, among them sharks smaller than 

 themselves (a case in point is a specimen taken off Morehead City, North Carolina, which 

 contained a Carcharhinus limbatus) , skates, and even sting-rays, which they devour regard 

 less of the poisonous spines, these often being imbedded in their jaws or elsewhere in their 

 bodies. It is a common habit of this species to bite great chunks from other sharks, often of 

 its own kind or of any other species which may be entangled in nets. The stomach contents 

 of 34 specimens, netted off North Carolina, contained crabs, Limulus, sharks (small and 

 large, entire and in pieces), large amounts of mackerel and unidentified small fish, sea 

 turtles (entire and in pieces), bones and feathers of sea fowl, pieces of shark and porpoise 

 that had seemingly been bitten from the nets, and garbage (sheep-bones, etc.)." As further 

 evidence of its voracity we may quote an instance in which a large one, rearing head 

 out of water, tore out the throat and belly from another shark that had been hoisted up to a 

 boom." The "Tiger" is also known as a scavenger, feeding on any kind of carrion, for 

 example, parts of sheep, dead dogs, beef bones, remains of poultry, and even on such 

 unappetizing objects as lumps of coal, tin cans or empty sacks. There is a recorded case in 



12. Personal communication from Luis Howell-Rivero. 



13. Whitley, Fish. Aust., /, 1940: 1 13. For an account of early embryonic development, see Sarangdhar (J. Bombay 

 nat. Hist. Soc, ^^ [i], 1943: 105). 



14. See Beebe (Galapagos Worlds End, 1924: 201) for an eye-witness account of a Tiger Shark devouring a young 

 sea lion. 



14a. Springer, Proc. Fla. Acad. Sci., J, 1939: 16. 15. Bell and Nichols, Copeia, 92, 1921 : 18-19. 



16. Radcliffe, Bull. U.S. Bur. Fish., 34, 1916: 263. 



