Carcharhinus longimanus

The oceanic whitetip shark is a large requiem shark inhabiting the pelagic zone of tropical and warm temperate seas. It has a stocky body and iconic elongated rounded fins, with white tips. The species is typically solitary, though they may gather in large numbers at food concentrations. Bony fish and cephalopods are the main components of its diet and females give live birth.

Carcharhinus longimanus

Johan Lantz, Malmö SWEDEN · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
oceanic whitetip sharkPBDB
Sits inside
CarcharhinusPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Carcharhiniformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Carcharhiniformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Carcharhiniformes

Time the record covers

At least 14 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 1.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 20.45 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 2 of 9 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3 of 9 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 4 of 9 occurrencesPleistocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.7–7.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.0–6.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.3–5.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.6–4.9 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences4.9–4.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.2–3.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.8–2.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.1–1.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.4–698 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences698 ka–0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15.98 Mya1.8 Mya20.9 Mya0 Mya

9 occurrences of Carcharhinus longimanus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

9 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

Curré — 8.86°N, 83.08°WLiuchungchi — 23.44°N, 120.59°ETatsunokuchi — 38.27°N, 140.86°E

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The named rock units Carcharhinus longimanus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Carcharhinus longimanus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Carcharhinus longimanus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

208 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Carcharhinus longimanus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

8 references

Each of the 9 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Carcharhinus longimanus

Credit
Johan Lantz, Malmö SWEDEN
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Carcharhinus longimanus was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCarcharhinus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Poey 1861)