Shark
Raggedtooth Shark
Carcharias taurus
A slow, snaggle-toothed coastal shark that gathers on Eastern Cape reefs and caves - fearsome to look at but famously placid around divers.
Also known as ragged tooth shark, ragged-tooth, raggedtooth, raggie, raggies, sand tiger, spotted ragged-tooth, spotted raggedtooth
- Typical size
- Commonly 2-3 m
- Habitat
- Inshore reefs, gullies and sandy caves
- Depth
- Surface to ~200 m; often on shallow reef
The raggedtooth, or 'raggie', is the shark most often noted on these dive-spot lists, and for good reason: it favours exactly the kind of reef gullies, ledges and sandy caves that spearos and divers frequent. Despite a mouthful of slender, exposed teeth, it is a sluggish, generally unaggressive fish that hangs almost motionless in the water by gulping air at the surface to hold neutral buoyancy.
Along the South African coast raggies follow a well-known migration, aggregating in the Eastern Cape in the cooler months and moving up towards KwaZulu-Natal to breed. They are ovoviviparous, and practise intra-uterine cannibalism - the largest embryo eats its siblings before birth - so females produce only a pup or two per cycle, which makes the species slow to recover from pressure.