Nurse Shark

• It feeds by suction. With its small mouth and a pharynx that works like a bellows, it sucks in prey at great speed, and that is how it pulls snails from their shells and crustaceans from crevices.
• It flips large thick-shelled snails over and extracts the animal by suction.
• It is one of the few sharks that do not need to swim in order to breathe: it pumps water over its gills with its spiracles, which lets it spend the day motionless on the bottom.
• It locates food by touch and smell with two nasal barbels, which is why it hunts well at night and in murky water.
• It is placid and tolerates divers approaching, but it bites with great tenacity if grabbed by the tail or fins, and it is hard to make it let go.
• The quoted maximums of 4.3 m are now considered exaggerated; the reliable record is around 3 m.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - cartilaginous skeleton (chondrichthyan fish)

Habitat and environment

Reef bottoms and seagrass beds of the tropical and subtropical Atlantic, from 0 to 130 m and usually between 1 and 35; by day it rests motionless in caves and under ledges, often piled up with others

Gestation / incubation

About 6 months

Litter / clutch size

From 21 to 28 young per birth

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Ginglymostoma cirratum