The transition happens over months. Hatchlings emerge from a large dark egg case boldly banded, and during growth the bands fragment, so a subadult shows an intermediate mixture of broken bars and spots before settling into the adult leopard pattern. The difference was pronounced enough that juveniles and adults were once described as separate species.
The pattern change is the source of a persistent naming muddle. In much of the Indo-Pacific the adult is called the leopard shark, a name that in the eastern Pacific belongs to Triakis semifasciata, an unrelated houndshark. The scientific name has also shifted, with Stegostoma tigrinum now generally preferred over Stegostoma fasciatum.
Zebra sharks have another distinction. Captive females have produced viable young without a male by parthenogenesis, including at least one female that had previously reproduced sexually, which makes the species a model for how facultative parthenogenesis works in elasmobranchs.