Oceanic Whitetip

[Steel Shootin']

Just wondering, who here has seen an Oceanic Whitetip? Were you spearing, and how did it react to you (or you, to it)? Where was the encounter?

[fishhunta]

thank God i haven't. i'm more scared of those things than bulls. the problem with them is that they hunt in packs, so they feed off eachpther's excitement, that is one shark that would make me shit my pants if i saw one, i probably will someday because i do some bluewater freediving

[Steel Shootin']

You got that right. I see one of these bad boys and I'm getting the hell out of Dodge. They have a reputation of being fearless and will eat about anything. There are even accounts of them trying to attack small boats.

[rusty]

Not sure what kind of white tip shark this was, saw a number of them while diving in HI last august, this one was about 5' long. Was not spearfishing (had the new camera with me) and they came within 1' of us. Glad I didn't have a stringer full of dead fish though.

Hope the picture worked???

[Steel Shootin']

That's not an Oceanic Whitetip. Dorsal fin is not rounded enough, and that second dorsal fin is too big. Pectoral fins don't look long enough, either. The shark overall looks too sleak, and the snout not blunt enough. I'd be interested in knowing what it is, if anyone can ID it.

[subdude]

is my uneducated guess.

subdude

[Stone]

Whitetip Reef Shark:

They don't get much longer than 5 ft. They have "cat like" teeth, thin and sharp for holding on to smallish reef fish (as opposed to serrated teeth for taking bites out of big prey)

Here's a picture of an Australian variety: