School Shark

Fascinating facts about the School Shark

• The school shark is the lone survivor of a lineage that stretches back, when its close relative G. cuvieri lived in the Early Eocene, and possibly to the mid-Cretaceous. Fossil teeth of the modern species have been found in mid-late Eocene rocks of North Carolina and later in Miocene deposits across the Americas and Chile, as well as in Pliocene layers of Chile, South Australia and California.
• Tagged school sharks have crossed entire ocean basins: individuals marked off the United Kingdom resurfaced in the Azores, the Canary Islands and Iceland, while Australian tags recorded 1,200 km (750 mi) coastal journeys and even appearances in New Zealand waters.
• School sharks mature late and produce many pups: males reach reproductive size at about 135 cm (53 in) and females at 150 cm (59 in); males become fertile at 8-13 years, females at 11-18 years. After a roughly one-year gestation, a mother carries 28-38 embryos, with litters sometimes sired by multiple males because females can store sperm long after mating.
• The IUCN lists the school shark as critically endangered, a status driven by intense fishing for its meat, fins and vitamin-A-rich liver. By World War II it supplied most of the United States' vitamin A, but the boom led to severe overexploitation and a collapse of catches; today its oil has been replaced by other species.
• In 2025 the school shark was proposed for CITES Appendix II, which would require export permits and tighter trade monitoring. New Zealand, the world's biggest exporter, says its quota-managed fishery aims for sustainability, while South Africa reports illegal catches below the 70 cm (27.5 in) minimum size. Adding the shark to CITES could curb unregulated trade, protecting a species that plays a key role in coastal food webs.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia
• Mongabay

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