This shark is not as common in the aquarium trade and as a juvenile is mistaken for a Brown Banded Bamboo shark quite a bit. This is the Grey Bamboo Shark pictured below.
They look like small shark pictured below as juveniles:
You can tell them apart from the Brown Banded Bamboo Shark by their dorsal fin. The Brown Banded Bamboo Shark has a concave dorsal fin and the Grey Bamboo Shark has a convex dorsal fin.
The Grey Bamboo Shark belongs to the family Hemiscylliidae. Not a whole lot of information is available on these sharks so first let’s go over the basics and then I’ll share with you what my Grey Bamboo Shark Fatty has taught me.
- They are found in the Indo-West Pacific oceans from the Arabian Sea to Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Japan, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea
- They are oviparous which means that they lay eggs.
Their body type is very different from the Brown Banded Bamboo Shark. That species is more slender. The Grey Bamboo Shark has a wide head and a bulky, muscular body with a shorter tail than the Brown Banded Bamboo Shark.
A healthy Grey Bamboo Shark will appear to be fat and they can definitely become overweight. But a healthy one looks like Fatty, my Grey Bamboo Shark pictured below.
As you can now probably tell, it’s an affectionate name for him because when was a pup I almost lost him to a vibrio outbreak. He got very skinny and luckily recovered. He has been a happy, healthy, “fat” shark ever since.
From my experience, this species is very intelligent and docile. However, towards the same species I have seen some aggression especially with 2 males. I have not had any experience with a female of this species yet so I’m not sure how they are.
The Grey Bamboo Shark is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red list as of 2016. There is also not currently an action recovery plan in place to help re-populate these species in the wild. If you are watching this and you breed this species please get in touch with me so that we can see what can be done to help the wild populations recover.
Let me know in the comments below which public aquariums have this species on display so that if anyone who is watching this wants to see one in person they can.
Before you make the decision to try to find one of these sharks to keep as a pet, be sure to watch the video below.
If you would like to learn even more, consider enrolling in my online course here: Aquarium Sharks For Beginners