While large enough to perhaps be dangerous, the bignose shark seldom comes into contact with humans due to its preference for deep water.

Furthermore, most bignose shark bycatch occurs in international waters, where a single stock may be affected by multiple fisheries.

Hunting close to the sea floor, the bignose shark feeds on bony and cartilaginous fishes, and cephalopods.

Patchy records from around the world indicate the bignose shark probably has a circumglobal distribution in tropical and subtropical waters.

Carcharhinus altimus (Bignose shark)

The bignose shark (Carcharhinus altimus) is a species of requiem shark, family Carcharhinidae.

Rather heavily built, the bignose shark has a long, broad, and blunt snout with the nostrils preceded by well-developed, triangular flaps of skin.

The bignose shark was found to be the sister species of the sandbar shark (C. plumbeus), with the two forming one of the group's two branches.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed the bignose shark as Data Deficient overall, due to inadequate population and fishery monitoring.

Mine Dosay-Abkulut's 2008 ribosomal DNA analysis, which included the silky, blue, and bignose sharks, confirmed the closeness of those three species.

Regionally, the IUCN has assessed the bignose shark as Near Threatened in the northwestern Atlantic.

It is one of the biggest coastal sharks in the world, and is closely related to the dusky shark, the bignose shark, and the bull shark.

Shark expert Stewart Springer described the bignose shark as Eulamia altima in a 1950 issue of the scientific journal American Museum Novitates.

In the northwestern Atlantic, the bignose shark conducts a poorly documented seasonal migration, spending summer off the US East Coast and winter in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.

The bignose shark is not used commercially in United States, where it is listed as Prohibited Species under the 2007 Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic tunas, swordfish and sharks, or in Australia.

The bignose shark feeds mainly on bottom-dwelling bony fishes (including lizardfishes, croakers, flatfishes, and batfishes), cartilaginous fishes (including Squalus dogfishes, Holohalaelurus catsharks, Dasyatis stingrays, and chimaeras), and cephalopods.

Though specific data are lacking, it is suspected to have declined there because it is commonly misidentified as the sandbar shark, thus the known decline in sandbar shark numbers resulting from US longline fishing may represent a decline in bignose shark numbers, as well.

Phylogenetic studies published by Jack Garrick in 1982 and Leonard Compagno in 1988, based on morphology, placed the bignose shark in the "obscurus group" of Carcharhinus, centered on the dusky shark (C. obscurus) and the Galapagos shark (C. galapagensis).

Carcharhinus altimus (Bignose shark)

The bignose shark (Carcharhinus altimus) is a species of requiem shark, family Carcharhinidae.