Tiger shark in Los Cabos

How to recognize it

Stout up front and slimmer toward the tail, with a very short, blunt, almost square snout, large eyes and a wide mouth. Adults are gray with dark vertical bars on the upper sides that can fade or disappear with age; young ones have large dark spots that join into bars. There is a strong ridge on the back between the dorsal fins, a low keel on each side of the narrow tail base and a long, sharply pointed upper tail lobe. The teeth are unmistakable: serrated, cockscomb-shaped and deeply notched, the same in both jaws.

Biology

Tiger sharks live in tropical and warm-temperate seas around the world, from coastal reefs, estuaries and harbors to oceanic islands and atolls, from the surface to about 800 m, though usually above 140 m. In the eastern Pacific they range from southern California to Peru, including the Revillagigedo, Cocos and Galápagos islands. They tend to stay in deeper water by day and move onto shallow reefs to feed at night, and they make long trips between islands and, in summer, into cooler water.

They eat sea turtles, rays and other sharks, bony fish, seabirds, marine mammals, squid, crustaceans and carrion. Unlike the requiem sharks they have no placenta: embryos develop inside the mother on yolk and later on uterine fluid during a 13- to 16-month pregnancy, and a female can have 10 to 82 pups of 51 to 76 cm. Males mature at 2.3 to 2.9 m and females at 2.5 to 3.3 m, and they can live around 50 years.

How it's caught in Los Cabos

We don’t target tiger sharks, and they aren’t a regular catch off Los Cabos. Museum specimens and observations exist from Cabo San Lucas, the Corridor, Todos Santos and Cabo Pulmo, but they are scattered over decades, so a tiger shark here is a surprise, not something to plan a trip around.

If one is hooked by accident, we release it. Best practice: circle hooks that aren’t stainless steel, keep the shark in the water, unhook it quickly or cut the leader close to the hook, and hold it facing forward while the boat moves slowly so water runs over its gills. Never lift a big shark by the tail or gills.

Rules, records & conservation

Top Anglers practices catch-and-release for all sharks.

Don't confuse it with

The bull shark is also stocky and blunt-nosed but plain gray, with no bars or spots and no ridge between the dorsal fins. Silky, dusky and Galápagos sharks have longer, pointed snouts and no markings. A faded adult tiger shark is easiest to tell by its very square snout, the keel on each side of the tail base and its long, pointed upper tail lobe.

Questions

By Max VargasTop Anglers, Cabo San Lucas · international judge at big game fishing world championships · reviewed October 2026

Sources

• FishBase: Galeocerdo cuvier
• Smithsonian STRI: eastern Pacific fishes, Galeocerdo cuvier
• Florida Museum: tiger shark
• Asúnsolo-Rivera 2016, sharks of Cabo Pulmo reef (UABCS thesis)
• ISRA factsheet: Cabo Pulmo Important Shark and Ray Area
• GBIF: Galeocerdo cuvier occurrence records
• Florida Museum, International Shark Attack File: species implicated
• IGFA world records: tiger shark
• NOM-017-PESC-1994, 2013 amendment (DOF)
• Shark closed season agreement, 2012 (DOF)

Top illustration: Top Anglers. Photos: iNaturalist contributors, credited on each photo.