The Whitetip Reef Shark is wide ranging in the Indo-Pacific. It occurs along the east coast of Africa from South Africa to Red Sea, Indian Ocean islands, northern Indian Ocean, including India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, New Guinea and Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia to the Hawaiian Islands and Pitcairn group. The species is also found in the eastern Pacific, Cocos Islands, Galapagos and Panama to Costa Rica (Compagno 1984b). It is found in shallow tropical waters from about 1 m down to 330 m depth, but mainly between 10?40 m (Randall 1977).