A common species that lives in wide environmental conditions, from shallow bays to more than 190 m depths over the outer shelves. They often occur around coral and rocky reefs, and are found near the bottom but also in midwater or at the surface. This shark can live solitary as well as in small and large schools. It is the only shark known to gulp air and store it in the shark's stomach, allowing the shark to maintain near-neutral buoyancy which helps it to hunt motionlessly and quietly so as not to alert its prey. The sand tiger shark has been observed to gather in hunting groups with other sand tiger sharks when preying upon large schools of fish. The sand tiger shark also gathers in numbers when hunting large prey or when mating. As the shark matures, it tends to eat larger prey including other sharks, dolphins, and swordfish. Biologists have observed that the shark will usually swallow its prey whole, which if the prey is too large can lead to health problems for the shark such as esophagus, heart, and liver damage.