Spinner Shark

With a recent email I received about a spinner shark caught on tape I thought this would be the perfect time to blog about it.

Scientific name: Carcharhinus brevipinna

Common name: Spinner shark, Longnose grey shark, Inkytail shark, and Smoothfang shark

Identification: The snout is laterally pointed and has well developed labial furrows (shallow grooves around the lips). Eyes are small and round. Interdorsal ridge is absent. Dorsum grey with indistinct white line on flank. Ventrum is white. Distinct and boldly delineated black tips on all fins except pelvic and upper caudal. Anal fin is more "hooked" than in most large reef sharks. Angular torso with well defined lateral line. Teeth are narrow cusped.

Size: Maximum length is 278 cm. With birth size ranging from 60-75 cm.

Habitat: Continental coastlines from inshore to edge of shelf. Surface water to bottom at 75 m.

Distribution: Western Atlantic from Carolinas to Gulf of Mexico. Southern Brazil. Occasional Craibeean and northern Brazil. Eastern Atlantic around western Africa and Southern Mediterranean Sea. Around perimeter of Indian Ocean from Madagascar to South Africa. Also India, Southeast Asia and Australia. North Pacific Japan and Philippines.

Behavior: Some subspecies of the spinner shark are migrational. Some species will live in enormous schools of females with the males only joining during mating season. When feeding, vertical upward attacks on surface fish lead to spectacular spinning jumps from the water.

Diet: consists mainly of bony fishes, but can include stingrays and cephalopods.

Reproduction: Viviparous with a yolk sac placenta. Litter size can range from 3-20 based on the size of the female shark.

Reaction to humans: VERY SHY! It is commonly seen by fishermen when breaching, but it will quickly move away when a human enters the water. Unlike other sharks even when there is chum in the water it will keep its distance.

IUCN Red List Status: Near threatened. Vulnerable to fishing pressure and habitat degradation.



The spinner shark is a species of requiem shark,* family Carcharhinidea. It's name comes from the spinning leaps it makes as a part of its feeding strategy, hence the name. The spinner shark can be found in tropical to warm waters worldwide, except for in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is usually found from coastal to offshore habitats to a depths up to 100m, even though it prefers shallower waters. The spinner shark is sometimes mistaken for a blacktip shark because of its slender body, long snout, and black-marked fins. This species can be distinguished from the blacktip shark by the first dorsal fin, which has a different shape and is placed further back, and by the black tip on the anal fin (adults only).

Spinner sharks are swift and gregarious predators that fed on a wide range of small bony fishes and cephalopods. These sharks are minimal to no threats to humans as their teeth are created to crush small fish. When feeding on schools of fish, they will speed vertically through the school while spinning on their axis, erupting from the water at the end. Which is what you can see in this attached link's video.

Like other members of the Carcharhinidae family, spinner sharks are viviparous with a yolk sac placenta in their reproduction method. The females will usually bear litters of 3-20 young every other year. The pups are born in shallow nursery areas near the coast and are relatively fast-growing.

Spinner sharks play a large role in commercial fisheries. The meat is considered to be high quality and is either sold fresh or dried and salted. In the USA the meat is marketed under the name "blacktip shark" due to that species being considered even higher in quality by consumers. In addition, the fins are used for shark fin soup, while the liver oil is processed for vitamins, and the skin is made into leather products.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed this species as Near Threatened worldwide and Vulnerable off the southeastern United States. The spinner sharks's frequent use of coastal habitats render it vulnerable to human exploitation and habitat degradation.

* Requiem sharks are a family, Carcharhinidea, of sharks in the order Carcharhiniformes, containing migratory, live-bearing sharks of warm seas (sometimes brackish or fresh water) such as the tiger shark, the blue shark, the bull shark, and the milk shark. Family members have the usual carcharhiniform characteristics. The eyes are round, and the pectoral fins are completely behind the five gill slits.