[4] Its body color can vary from a blue-ish brown, grey or bronze, with a white or pale underside.

The sandbar shark, true to its nickname, is commonly found over muddy or sandy bottoms in shallow coastal waters such as bays, estuaries, harbors, or the mouths of rivers, but it also swims in deeper waters (200 m or more) as well as intertidal zones.

Sandbar sharks are found in tropical to temperate waters worldwide; in the western Atlantic they range from Massachusetts to Brazil.

[7] They have also been found to primarily consume osteichthyes, or bony fish, octopuses, european squid, and cuttlefish when in areas such as the Mediterranean or the Gulf of Gabés.

[10] Sandbar sharks are viviparous, with the embryos supported in placental yolk sac inside the mother.

Females have been found to exhibit both biennial, consistently reproducing every two years and returning to the same place to have deliver the pup, and triennial, reproducing every three years and returning to the same place for delivery, migration and gestation periods.

Currently, a small number of specially permitted vessels fish for sandbar sharks for the purpose of scientific research.

However, on August 2, 2021, a 12-year-old girl was bitten on her leg by a sandbar shark in Ocean City, Maryland, United States.