#2022 · 🦈 sharks & rays
Nurse Shark
🇳🇱 Verpleegsterhaai ·Ginglymostoma cirratum
7 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
The nurse shark ( Ginglymostoma cirratum ) is an elasmobranch fish within the family Ginglymostomatidae. They are directly targeted in some fisheries and considered as bycatch in others. The conservation status of the nurse shark is globally assessed as being data deficient in- the IUCN List of Threatened Species owing to the lack of information across its range in the eastern Pacific Ocean and eastern Atlantic Ocean. They are considered to be a species of least concern in...
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- No confirmed wild sightings in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: you'd have to travel for this one.
- 5,046 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named by Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre in 1788 (238 years ago).
- Listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
fact sheet
- English
- Nurse Shark
- Nederlands
- Verpleegsterhaai
- scientific name
- Ginglymostoma cirratum
- class
- Chondrichthyes
- order
- Orectolobiformes
- family
- Ginglymostomatidae
- IUCN Red List
- VU · vulnerable
- sightings in NL
- 0
- sightings worldwide
- 5,046
- GBIF records in NL
- 1
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1788 by Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre
IUCN in Dutch: kwetsbaar. Blank means the sources don't say.
relatives· Ginglymostomatidae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 49964, Wikidata Q756859, GBIF 2417495, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.