She now lies on the seabed around 33 metres deep, although she is no longer in one piece. The 120-metre-long shipwreck was rocked so violently by a hurricane in the 1990s that she was torn into bits.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those who visit this dive site might be joined by an animal with a cutting grin. The Aeolus, like some other wreck sites in North Carolina, has become known for its population of\u00a0sand tiger sharks.<\/a><\/p>\n This species is sometimes known by another name: raggedtooth sharks or, affectionately, raggies. Take one look at their pin cushion of a mouth and you\u2019ll see why.\u00a0<\/p>\n This footage, captured in September 2025, shows sand tiger sharks at the Aeolus wreck. Credit: Jerrod Jenkins\/Olympus Dive Center<\/p>\n Seeing these ominous-looking sharks, which can grow to around 3 metres long, leering towards you through the skeleton of the Aeolus makes the experience feel even more haunting. It doesn\u2019t help that sand tiger sharks swim with their mouths open, as if to show off their epic teeth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet, despite their fearsome face, raggies are placid sharks. Their spiky teeth might look ferocious but they\u2019re designed to grip onto small, slippery prey, such as fish and squid, rather than shearing apart larger animals. That is to say, humans just aren\u2019t on their menu.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many scuba divers come to this site armed with their cameras, hoping to capture a great shot of the sharks cruising lazily around the wreck \u2013 especially in what has become known as the \u2018shark room\u2019 (sometimes also called the ‘shark ballroom’ or ‘Club Aeolus\u2019), where raggies are often found hanging out.<\/p>\n The presence of sharks indicates something important: a healthy ecosystem. So, it\u2019s no surprise that the wreck is also bustling with many other species of fish.\u00a0<\/p>\n A\u00a0study<\/a>, published in the journal Ecology in 2019, used citizen science photos\u00a0to show that female raggies return to the wreck year after year. What makes the Aeolus (and other North Carolina wrecks) so attractive to these\u00a0critically endangered<\/a>\u00a0animals isn\u2019t quite clear, but something keeps drawing them back. <\/p>\n Sand tiger sharks, or raggedtooth sharks, can be found at a number of North Carolina’s wreck sites. Credit: Robert Harding\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Top image: Aeolus shipwreck. Credit: Kevin Littleton\/Getty Images<\/p>\n More amazing wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Aeolus in North Carolina combines two things that sound scary to many people: a shipwreck and sharks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-306770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sheepshead](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sheepshead-fish-at-Aeolus-wreck.jpeg\")
The Aeolus is home to numerous animal species, such as this sheepshead fish. Credit: Kevin Littleton\/Getty Images<\/p>\n