Meet the smallest member of the Nurse Shark Family! The Short-tail Nurse Shark is a tropical reef species found in the Western Indian Ocean along the coast of Africa from Tanzania to Kenya and around the island of Madagascar. Their common name refers to the unique feature of their precaudal tail being shorter than head and body length and a petite caudal fin less than a quarter of their total length. These sharks have a broad and blunt shaped head with very small eyes and tiny nasal barbels.
Size: Short Tail Nurse Sharks have a maximum reported length of just 30 inches making them considerably shorter than the Hemiscyllium species sharks we raise. With their diminutive size and low activity, these are one of the best species of sharks for the large home aquarium.
Diet: Our sharks prefer a diet rich with a variety of fresh fish, shrimp, squid, scallop and clam. All items typically available at any grocery seafood department.
Interesting facts:
- These are also long-lived sharks: ARTIS Royal Zoo in Amsterdam kept one female for over 33 years and was the first to reproduce them in captivity.
- Bites from our Hemiscyllium sharks are pretty benign, these guys have a larger mouth with larger teeth. You don’t want to be bitten.
- They like to rest on their sides or even upside down for extended periods. We were warned about this with our first pair but it takes a while for the panic to wear off when you see them like that.
- Their eggs take an incredible 165 days to hatch!
