sand tiger NC

Just before the Memorial Day weekend I did a bit of diving off North
Carolina. Encountered a lot of Sand Tigers. They were very big but
also extremely passive. In Africa the Sand Tigers are listed as man
eaters. Anyone know why the North American sharks are so benign and
their African partners aren't?

Stephen Weir
Toronto

"sweir toronto canada" wrote in message
news:1119411844.717754.49740@g14g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
> Anyone know why the North American sharks are so benign and
> their African partners aren't?

Because we kill and eat the aggressive ones...

Or maybe it's just that they like dark meat...

"sweir toronto canada" <sweir5492@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:1119411844.717754.49740@g14g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
> Just before the Memorial Day weekend I did a bit of diving off North
> Carolina. Encountered a lot of Sand Tigers. They were very big but
> also extremely passive. In Africa the Sand Tigers are listed as man
> eaters. Anyone know why the North American sharks are so benign and
> their African partners aren't?

Same as with honey bees. Africanize them and they become "killer bees".

sweir toronto canada wrote:
> Just before the Memorial Day weekend I did a bit of diving off North
> Carolina. Encountered a lot of Sand Tigers. They were very big but
> also extremely passive. In Africa the Sand Tigers are listed as man
> eaters. Anyone know why the North American sharks are so benign and
> their African partners aren't?
>

I think that what we call sand tigers and what the Africans call sand
tigers are different species. I know that in Australia, what we call
sand tigers are called grey nurse sharks. There are a lot of geographic
variations in naming of the same species.

For instance, while great white shark is more or less universal for that
species, the Australians have traditionally called it white pointer.

But I could be wrong. I'm overdue.

g

"George Cathcart" <gcathcar@noumdspam.edu> wrote in message
news:d9bnot$m51$1@grapevine.wam.umd.edu...

> I think that what we call sand tigers and what the Africans call sand
> tigers are different species. I know that in Australia, what we call sand
> tigers are called grey nurse sharks. There are a lot of geographic
> variations in naming of the same species.

Yep. What we call Sand Tigers, they call Ragged-Tooth. They're both called
Carcharius taurus, and supposedly the ones here aren't dangerous but the
ones over there are. Except that some Ragged Tooth sharks are really
Odontaspis sp. And plenty of sources confuse the two, so much so that we
all remain confused.