The blacktip tope, Hypogaleus hyugaensis, is a slender houndshark of the outer continental shelf in the Indo-West Pacific, and the only species in its genus. FishBase records it at up to 127 centimetres and gives a depth range of 40 to 230 metres.
Also called the pencil shark or blacktip topeshark, it eats bony fishes and squid and is harmless to people. The Least Concern label carried by older profiles of this shark is out of date: the current Red List assessment, made on 2 August 2023, is Data Deficient — there is not enough information to say how the species is doing.
- Scientific nameHypogaleus hyugaensis
- Maximum length127 cm (about 4 ft 2 in)
- Red List statusData Deficient
On this page
A tope in name only
The species name points straight at where the first specimen came from: Hyūga, on the east coast of Kyushu in southern Japan. The genus Hypogaleus was raised for this shark alone and has never held another, which makes it one of the small handful of sharks with a genus entirely to itself.
The English name is more of a nuisance. It is not the tope, Galeorhinus galeus, the wide-ranging school shark of temperate seas, and it is not especially close to it either. Both sit in the houndshark family, Triakidae, but so do the smooth-hounds, the gummy shark and the whitefin topeshark. Tope in these names describes a body plan — long, slim, narrow-finned — rather than a relationship.
Pencil shark, the other name it goes by, describes the animal better than either. A blacktip tope is genuinely thin: a metre or so of shark with a narrow head, a long snout and none of the bulk that a requiem shark of the same length would carry. It is a food fish where it is landed, taken in small quantities rather than as the target of any large fishery.
Size and appearance
FishBase records a maximum of 127 centimetres for males and 122 for females, and puts maturity at 95 centimetres and above. That corrects the flat figure of about 117 centimetres given in older summaries — it is close, but it is the average rather than the ceiling, and a mature animal can be a good deal longer.
Adults are plainer than the name promises. The standard description gives dull grey above, paler below, and no more than a slightly dusky front to the snout. The dark fin tips the English name points at are clearest in smaller animals; a full-grown blacktip tope is an unremarkable grey shark with a long, pointed, slightly flattened snout, large oval eyes, and a first dorsal fin set well forward of the pelvics.
Its relatives in the same waters do not make identification easier. The Japanese topeshark shares much of the same coast and much of the same outline, and both are landed together. Size at maturity and the position of the fins do most of the separating; colour does very little.
Where it lives
The range is Indo-West Pacific and scattered: records run from the eastern coast of Africa — Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa — through the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman to India, and on to Taiwan, southern Japan and southern Australia. In latitude that spans roughly 37 degrees north to 40 degrees south, a wide band with large gaps in the middle where nobody has looked.
Depth is the consistent part. FishBase gives 40 to 230 metres and classes the species as a deep-water shark, which in practice means the outer continental shelf and the top of the slope rather than anything abyssal. It stays near the bottom. That band is below most recreational diving and above most deep-sea trawling, which is part of the reason so little is known about it.
The gaps in the map are worth reading honestly. A scatter of widely separated records can mean a genuinely patchy distribution, or it can mean a continuous one sampled only where fisheries observers happen to work. For this shark the evidence does not settle the question.
Diet, a fifteen-month pregnancy, and an unknown status
The diet on record is bony fishes and cephalopods — squid, cuttlefish and octopus. The teeth suit that: small, bladed and built to grip rather than to crush, which separates this shark straight away from the shell-eating smooth-hounds in the same family.
Reproduction is the most striking thing about it. The blacktip tope is viviparous with a yolk-sac placenta, carrying ten or eleven pups that are born at about 33 to 35 centimetres. The gestation period is estimated at fifteen months, longer than a year and longer than almost anything else in the houndshark family. Mating involves a distinct pairing with the male wrapped around the female, which has been observed and described. A pregnancy that long means a female cannot produce a litter every year, and that alone puts a ceiling on how fast any population can recover from fishing.
Which makes the missing conservation data the real story here. Earlier accounts of this shark, including the version of this page they came from, recorded it as Least Concern. That is no longer the assessment. The species was reassessed on 2 August 2023 and now sits on the Red List as Data Deficient, meaning the evidence is not there to place it in any category at all. For a shark that is caught and eaten across a range of more than seventy degrees of latitude, breeds once every year and a half at best, and has never been the subject of a dedicated stock assessment, that is not a reassuring result — it is an admission that nobody is counting. The rest of the family is in the species guide.
Frequently asked questions
How big does a blacktip tope get?
FishBase records a maximum of 127 centimetres for males and 122 centimetres for females, with maturity reached from about 95 centimetres. Pups are born at roughly 33 to 35 centimetres. The often-quoted figure of about 117 centimetres describes a typical adult rather than the largest recorded fish.
Where does the blacktip tope live?
Across the Indo-West Pacific in scattered records: Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa, the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman, India, Taiwan, southern Japan and southern Australia. It stays near the bottom on the outer continental shelf, between about 40 and 230 metres, and is not found in shallow coastal water.
Is the blacktip tope dangerous to humans?
No. It is classed as harmless, no incident anywhere is attributed to it, and its normal depth band of 40 to 230 metres puts it well below recreational swimmers and most divers. At just over a metre long with small gripping teeth, it is built for squid and small fish.
Why is its pregnancy so long?
Nobody knows why, but the length is on record: gestation in this species is estimated at fifteen months, longer than a year and unusual even among sharks. A female carries ten or eleven pups nourished through a yolk-sac placenta, which means she cannot produce a litter in consecutive years.
What is the conservation status of the blacktip tope?
Data Deficient, assessed on 2 August 2023. Older profiles list it as Least Concern, which is out of date. Data Deficient means there is not enough information to judge whether the population is stable or declining — a gap that matters for a shark caught for food across a very wide range.
References
A small team focused on researching sharks and making marine biology easy to understand. Every page is reviewed against current species records and the SharkSider attack database, and updated when new incidents or research appear.
Published October 10, 2022 · Last updated September 23, 2026 · Part of the Types of Sharks section.
