Diving around the Gili Islands, it is common to see sharks. Two species are usual:

• white tip reef shark
• black tip reef shark.

Some particular dive sites offer higher chance to meet them. Nevertheless, other shark species frequent our waters too, but they are often very rarely seen, such as bamboo shark, Chiloscyllium punctatum.

The bamboo shark is usually found sleeping in a cavity. This was the case during this dive, I was looking for baby white tip reef sharks and I found something really beyond my expectation, a rare sight of bamboo shark:

It slept in a fairly large cave where often young white tip reef sharks are sleeping during the day.

During this dive, we saw more than fifteen green and hawksbill turtles.

Do not confuse it with the nurse shark

This shark is very similar to the nurse shark.

Bamboo sharks have 2 spiracles, one located under each eye. These spiracles are also present in other marine animals such as stingrays.
They serve in the respiratory cycle of these animals.