Carcharhinus albimarginatus
The silvertip shark is a large species of requiem shark in the family carcharhinidae, with a fragmented distribution throughout the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is often encountered around offshore islands and coral reefs, and has been known to dive to a depth of 800 m (2,600 ft). The silvertip shark resembles a larger and bulkier grey reef shark, but can be easily identified by the prominent white margins on its fins. It attains a maximum length of 3 m (10 ft).

Kendall Clements / University of Auckland · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- silvertip sharkPBDB
- Sits inside
- CarcharhinusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Carcharhiniformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Carcharhiniformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Carcharhiniformes
Time the record covers
At least 6.9 million years on record.
The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 4.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 1.4 Mya.
5 occurrences of Carcharhinus albimarginatus on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
5 occurrences- Miocene56%
- Pliocene37%
- Pleistocene7%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
4 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Carcharhinus albimarginatus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Carcharhinus albimarginatus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Carcharhinus albimarginatus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
38 taxa- Carcharhinus brachyurus3 sites
- Carcharhinus altimus2 sites
- Carcharhinus leucas2 sites
- Carcharhinus obscurus2 sites
- Carcharodon carcharias2 sites
- Galeocerdo capellini2 sites
- Hemipristis serra2 sites
- Isurus oxyrinchus2 sites
- Nasolamia velox2 sites
- Otodus megalodon2 sites
- Sphyrna media2 sites
- Carcharhinus falciformis1 site
- Carcharhinus galapagensis1 site
- Carcharhinus limbatus1 site
- Carcharias acutissimus1 site
- Cetorhinus1 site
- Dalatiidae1 site
- Ferrucyon avius1 site
- Ginglymostoma1 site
- Heterodontus1 site
- Hexanchus griseus1 site
- Isistius triangulus1 site
- Mobula1 site
- Notolagus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Carcharhinus albimarginatus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
5 references- On the shark tooth remains, collected by natural historian Shosaku Iwasawa - focuses of Tenjinyama specimen1
- Fossil Chondrichthyes from the central eastern Pacific Ocean and their paleoceanographic significance1
- Los dientes de Seláceos (Condrichthyies) y su aplicaión estratigráfica en Las Lomas de Ullujaya (Ica, Perú)1
- Selacifauna Pliocenica de Baja California Sur, Mexico y sus problemas de correlacion regional1
- Phyletic studies; part 1, Tiger sharks1
Each of the 5 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Carcharhinus albimarginatus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Kendall Clements / University of Auckland
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Carcharhinus albimarginatus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCarcharhinus through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Rüppell 1837)