266 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



upper labial furrow about as long as snout in front of mouth; a well marked precaudal 

 pit below as well as above; a low dermal ridge along midline of back between dorsal fins; 

 caudal with pointed tip and lower lobe; teeth alike in the 2 jaws, large, few in number, 

 with coarsely serrate edges, convex inwardly, their outer margins deeply notched; longest 

 gill opening about Ys as long as base of i st dorsal, the 4th over origin of pectoral. Develop- 

 ment ovoviviparous. Characters otherwise those of the family. 



Range. Cosmopolitan in tropical and subtropical seas. 



Fossil Teeth. Upper Cretaceous to Miocene, North America; Eocene to Miocene, 

 Africa; Eocene to Pliocene, Europe; Miocene, Asia, South America, West Indies. 



S-pecies. It is probable that all published references to the genus, from all parts of 

 the world, concern one or another race of a single wide-ranging species, the common 

 Tiger Shark of tropical seas; although the Australasian Galeocerdo has been considered 

 a distinct species by some authors,* there is nothing in the published accounts to suggest 

 any clear distinction between it and the Galeocerdo of the tropical Atlantic. 



Galeocerdo cuv'ter (Lesueur), 1822 



Tiger Shark, Leopard Shark 



Figure 44 



Study Material. Two young females, 1,368 and 1,380 mm. (about 4 feet 6 inches) 

 long, and a young male of 1,245 m"^- (about 4 feet i inch), from southern New England; 

 very small female, 585 mm. long (about 23 inches), with well marked umbilical scar, 

 hence either late embryo or newborn, from Cuba; also jaws of larger specimens from vari- 

 ous localities. 



Distinctive Characters. There is no danger of confusing the "Tiger" with any other 

 shark, so diagnostic are its teeth, combined with the very short snout, very long upper 

 labial furrows and sharp-pointed tail. 



Description. Proportional dimensions in per cent of total length. Male, 1,245 n^m-j 

 from Rhode Island (Harv. Mus. Comp. Zool., No. 35145). 



Trunk at origin of pectoral: breadth lO. i ; height 10.9. 



Snout length in front of: outer nostrils 1.9; mouth 4.2. 



Eye: horizontal diameter 2.1. 



Mouth: breadth 8.4; height 5.0. 



Nostrils: distance between inner ends 4.3. 



Labial furrow lengths: upper 4.3, lower 1.9. 



Gill opening lengths: ist 2.4; 2nd 2.5; 3rd 2.5; 4th 2.6; 5th 2.3. 



First dorsal fin: vertical height 8.3 ; length of base 8.4. 



6. Most recently by Whitley (Fish. Aust., /, 1940: 113) as G. rayneri MacDonald and Barron, 1868. If the Aus- 

 tralian form should finally prove to be distinct from the Atlantic, its correct name is cuvier Lesueur, 1822, type 

 locality "New Holland," the name then in use for eastern Australia. 



