One tiger shark tracked off Western Australia traveled over 4,000 kilometers during 517 days of monitoring. Core home ranges of tiger sharks tagged off Western Australia varied greatly, from 1,166.9 to 634,944 square kilometers. Adult male tiger sharks tracked by satellite in the northwest Atlantic made round-trip migrations of over 7,500 kilometers every year. Tiger sharks tagged around Hawaii sometimes ranged about 1,400 kilometers offshore. Researchers used photos and laser measurements to identify 239 individual tiger sharks in Fuvahmulah, Maldives, over seven years.

In a genetic study of pups from four pregnant tiger sharks, the sharks sampled appeared to be genetically monogamous. A new intrauterine satellite tag, tested in a tiger shark and a scalloped hammerhead, remotely recorded the location and timing of birth. A female carries her pups for a year or more, up to about 16 months, before they are born. Unlike the other live-bearing sharks in its family, the tiger shark does not develop a placenta. A tiger shark pup weighs 3 to 6 kilograms at birth.

A 2016 genetic study estimated that the tiger shark lineage split from the placental carcharhinid sharks about 94 million years ago. The oldest known fossils of tiger sharks (genus Galeocerdo) come from the early Eocene. A 2021 study of fossil and living tiger shark teeth supports only six valid species in the genus Galeocerdo. Genetic evidence from 286 tiger sharks suggests a bottleneck 2,000 to 3,000 years ago that left low genetic diversity. Tiger shark teeth change gradually from embryo to adult, mostly getting bigger and more complex.

Tiger sharks at the top of food webs in Shark Bay and the Great Barrier Reef did not hold that role at Ningaloo Reef or off New South Wales. Stomach contents from 628 tiger sharks off South Africa showed that reptiles, birds and large sharks became more important in the diet as the sharks grew. In the Galapagos, green sea turtles were the main prey of large tiger sharks over 280 centimeters, while smaller sharks mainly ate squid and pelagic fish. Tiger sharks may have the most varied diet of any shark.

Suitable habitat for tiger sharks in Shark Bay, Western Australia, was linked to dense, shallow seagrass beds and hypersaline water. Movement data from tiger sharks helped scientists map and check the size of the seagrass meadows of the Bahamas Banks. As of November 2026, the Bahamas Banks hold at least 66,000 and up to 92,000 square kilometers of seagrass, the world's largest seagrass ecosystem. In the Galapagos Marine Reserve, 93 percent of the satellite-tracked time of tiger sharks was spent inside the reserve.

Words to know

• genus: group of species
• Eocene: an old time
• bottleneck: sharp drop
• monogamous: one mate
• hypersaline: extra salty