Western Atlantic: North Carolina, USA to northern Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamas, then from southern Brazil to northern Argentina. Reported from Cuba. Eastern Atlantic: Spain to Namibia, including the southern Mediterranean Sea. Indo-West Pacific: Red Sea south to South Africa and eastward to Indonesia, north to Japan, south to Australia. Often referred to as Carcharhinus limbatus in the past.

A slender shark with a long, narrow, pointed snout, long gill slits and small, narrow-cusped teeth; first dorsal fin small; no interdorsal ridge; labial furrows longer than in any other grey shark. Grey above, white below, with a conspicuous white band on sides; second dorsal, anal, undersides of pectorals and lower caudal-fin lobe black or dark grey-tipped in subadults and adults, but unmarked or nearly so in small individuals.

Found on the continental and insular shelves from close inshore to offshore. Makes vertical spinning leaps out of the water as a feeding technique in which the sharks spins through a school of small fish with an open mouth and then breaks the surface. Feeds mainly on pelagic bony fishes, also small sharks, cuttlefish, squids, and octopi.