As of November 2026, the longest tiger shark known was about 7.4 meters (740 centimeters), though most are shorter than 5 meters. An adult tiger shark is commonly 325 to 425 centimeters (10 to 14 feet) long and commonly weighs 385 to 635 kilograms (850 to 1,400 pounds), and as of November 2026 the largest tiger sharks have reached 862 kilograms. A newborn pup is about 51 to 76 centimeters (1 to 1.5 feet) long and weighs 3 to 6 kilograms at birth. In the wild, the average lifespan of a tiger shark is 27 years, though some may live to 50. A tiger shark matures at about 7 to 10 years old, when it is about 10 feet long.

Scientists use satellite tags to track the movements of tiger sharks, and newer tags on Hawaiian tiger sharks measure ocean depth, temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen and light levels. Scientists studied 96 tiger sharks around Hawaii that carried satellite or acoustic tags, and most satellite location estimates for tagged tiger sharks around the main Hawaiian Islands were in coastal waters less than 500 meters deep. Tiger sharks tagged around Hawaii sometimes ranged about 1,400 kilometers offshore. In a Hawaii study using accelerometer tags, tiger sharks had mean swimming speeds of 0.5 to 0.9 meters per second. Tiger sharks fitted with tracking tags swam at least 16 kilometers in a single day.

Satellite-tagged tiger sharks in the Coral Sea dove to 1,136 meters, and twenty young tiger sharks tagged off northeastern Brazil used waters up to 1,112 meters deep. In the western North Atlantic, all tagged tiger sharks made dives to at least 250 meters, and one reached 828 meters. Researchers got usable data from nine of 14 tiger sharks tagged with pop-up satellite archival tags off the U.S. Virgin Islands and Bermuda, and the sharks spent most of their time making yo-yo dives in the upper 50 meters. As of November 2026, tiger sharks have been reported at 350 meters (1,085 feet). They are often seen at the surface.

Tiger sharks eat many different kinds of food, and their food includes sea turtles and birds. They may have the most varied diet of any shark, and they are scavengers as well as hunters. 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. A tiger shark's large teeth have curved tips and serrated, saw-like edges. Each tooth has a deep notch on its outer edge. They hunt mostly at night, and at night they often move into shallow water to feed. A tiger shark is well camouflaged, and it can use short bursts of speed once its prey is within range.

Adult male tiger sharks tracked by satellite in the northwest Atlantic made round-trip migrations of over 7,500 kilometers every year. Tiger sharks migrate with the seasons, moving into temperate waters from the tropics in warmer months and returning to the tropics in winter, and they make long ocean migrations between islands. They are found in many subtropical and tropical waters, mainly between 45 degrees north and 32 degrees south, and they have been confirmed as far north as Iceland and the United Kingdom. They live both in the open ocean and in shallow coastal waters, and they generally prefer murky water near the coast. They are often found where rivers meet the sea and in harbors.

Words to know

• salinity: saltiness
• accelerometer: motion sensor
• archival: storing records
• pelagic: open-sea