Galápagos Shark: Facts and Where to See It

Galápagos sharks look much like grey reef sharks and dusky sharks, which makes them hard to tell apart in the water. The Florida Museum of Natural History lists the signs that help:

• Colour. Brownish grey above and white below, sometimes with a faint white band on the flanks.
• Shape. A moderately long, broadly rounded snout, large round eyes and large, slightly curved pectoral fins.
• The first dorsal fin. Tall and upright with a slightly rounded tip; compared with a grey reef shark, the body is more slender.

They are large for their genus, with 14 rows of serrated teeth according to the Galapagos Conservation Trust, triangular in the upper jaw and sharper in the lower.

Young sharks eat mostly fish that live near the bottom, such as eels, groupers and triggerfish, along with squid and octopus. As they grow, their diet widens to rays and smaller sharks, and in Galápagos the adults also take fur seals and sea lions. They have been seen eating marine iguanas and even rubbish. Adults are inquisitive: the Galapagos Conservation Trust notes that once excited, they are hard to deter, while in the presence of divers they often feel threatened and take on a hunched posture.

Galápagos sharks give birth to live young, 4 to 16 pups at a time, each 75 to 89 cm long. Adults also eat their own kind, so the pups stay in shallow nursery waters less than 25 metres deep and move out to deeper water as they grow. Females first breed at about 10 years. Around Galápagos, the Galapagos Conservation Trust places the mating season between January and March; for about a month after March, juvenile sharks may be seen in the shallow water along the coast.

Galápagos shark habitat is the clear tropical water around oceanic islands, with strong currents over rocky or coral bottoms, from close inshore down to about 180 metres. It is found in tropical oceans worldwide, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, but it prefers remote islands, and it was first found in what is now the Galápagos Marine Reserve. In the archipelago, the waters off Wolf and Darwin islands in the far north are where it is seen most.

Guide sighting records list Galápagos sharks at 4 sites, all in open water. 2 are rated Likely, with sightings on most visits: the dive sites at Wolf and at Darwin Arch off Darwin, both in the far north. 2 are rated Possible: Gordon Rocks off Santa Cruz, a dive site, and Kicker Rock (León Dormido) off San Cristóbal, the one site in the list that snorkellers can visit as well as divers.

Galápagos sharks are seen around the islands throughout the year, so no month rules them out. Young sharks in the shallows along the coast are the seasonal sight, for about a month after the mating season of January to March. In the next twelve months, 123 departures stop at a site where they are seen.

No. The Galapagos Conservation Trust gives its status as Least Concern. Adults are too large for most predators, so people are the main threat: sharks die as bycatch in fishing and are hunted in some places for their fins, oil, teeth and bones. Because they have few young and mature late, numbers recover slowly, and in some parts of the world the species is thought to have disappeared locally.

In Galápagos. Shark fishing is banned inside the Galápagos Marine Reserve, but illegal long-line fishing still happens. Since November 2022, the international trade in the Galápagos shark is controlled under CITES, together with 53 other requiem sharks.

1. Expecting them on a regular snorkel. Of the 4 sites in the guide records, only Kicker Rock is a snorkelling site; the others are dive sites.
2. Counting on Wolf and Darwin. Both Likely sites lie in the far north and are dive sites; check that a route goes there before planning around them.
3. Confusing them with other sharks. Grey reef and dusky sharks look very similar, so a guide's word is the surest identification.