Researchers in Hawaiʻi were surprised to find evidence of tiger sharks and oceanic whitetips – two species not usually found together – calmly munching on a whale carcass together.
At least nine oceanic whitetips (Carcharhinus longimanus) and five tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) were seen getting a slice of the action.
Details of the event – which is believed to be the first report of oceanic whitetips and tigers scavenging together – has been published in Frontiers in Fish Science.
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The sharks were spotted by tourism operators around six miles off the west coast of Hawaiʻi’s Big Island. They were feeding on a whale carcass that had decayed so significantly it was just “a big chunk of flesh and blubber, rather than bones,” according to co-author Olivia Miller’s description in the study.
Tiger sharks can be found at Big Island throughout the year but oceanic whitetip sharks visit seasonally, coming to these waters each spring and summer.
“It is incredibly rare for these two species to overlap in space and time,” says the study’s author Dr Molly Scott, a marine researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. “These species are rarely seen together in the wild because of the vastly different habitats they occupy.”
Oceanic whitetip sharks are usually found in the open oceans while tigers tend to live closer to coastlines.
Even rarer is seeing these predators feed together. “To our knowledge, this is the first study to document a feeding aggregation of tiger sharks and oceanic whitetip sharks scavenging concurrently, and peacefully, on a carcass,” says Scott.
She was surprised that there wasn’t more confrontation or aggression between the sharks as they tried to get their share of this easy meal. “I would assume some agonistic behaviours would exist when there are that many sharks attempting to feed around such a small carcass,” she says. “But it seems all individuals knew their place in the social hierarchy.”
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There wasn’t long to study this unusual event. The boat operators were able to watch the sharks feeding for 8.5 hours. But the next day, the whale was already gone.
While they watched the sharks feed, tourists were even able to get into the water for a better look and watch the peaceful event from a safe distance. "There were between two and three humans in the water at all times filming more than 12 sharks feeding,” says Scott. “None of the photographers reported any scary, aggressive or harmful interactions with the sharks.”
Oceanic whitetip sharks are critically endangered, according to the IUCN Red List, and humans kill around 100 million sharks every year. In 2024, there were just unprovoked bites around the world.
Overturning harmful stereotypes of sharks as mindless man-eaters is important for protecting these animals. “I hope this provides a new perspective that sharks are not the human-eating predators they are made out to be," notes Scott.
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Image and video credit: Kayleigh Grant
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