Home > Whale shark

The average whale shark is around 8 m long. A member of the order Orectolobiformes, it is a filter feeder. The shark has a capacious mouth, which can be up to 1.5 m wide and contain up to 300 rows of tiny teeth, and as part of its feeding process, it also has five large pairs of gill arches. The head is, naturally, wide and also flat with the small eyes towards the front of the snout. The body is mostly grey with a white belly, but three prominent ridges run along each side and the skin is marked with a 'checkerboard' of pale yellow spots and stripes. The shark has two pairs each of dorsal fins and pectoral fins. The tail is large, with a much larger top fin than lower in juveniles but semi-lunate in adults. The spiracles are just behind the shark's eyes. The whale shark is not an efficient swimmer - with the entire body in motion, unusual for sharks, an average speed of around 5 km/h is achieved.

The shark feeds on phytoplankton, macro- algae, and planktonic ( plankton, krill) or nektonic life (small squidThis article is about the sea animal. For other uses of "squid", see Squid (disambiguation). Myopsina Oegopsina The squid is a marine mollusk of the class Cephalopoda, subclass Coleoidea, order Teuthida of which there are two major suborders, Myopsina and or vertebrates). The many rows of teeth playing no role in feeding. Instead, water is actively drawn into the mouth and passes over gill rakers and then out through the gill arches. Any material caught in the rakers is swallowed. The shark can circulate up to 6000 l of water every hour but they are active feeders and target concentrations of plankton or fish by olfactory cues rather than 'vacuuming' constantly.

The whale shark is a tropical and warm water fish, operating near the surface (benthic) mostly in coastal waters throughout the world, except the Mediterranean. Its range is restricted to about ±30 ° latitude. The shark is solitary and only rarely seen in groups. It is believed to be migratory but on what scale is uncertain (transoceanic has been suggested).

Like most sharks the reproductive habits of the whale shark are obscure. It was believed to be oviparous based on a single egg recovered off Mexico in 1956, but the capture of a pregnant female in 1995 containing 300 young indicates that they are viviparous with ovoviviparousOvoviviparous is the reproductive technique of many animals. It means giving birth to a well developed offspring that has been developed from an egg that has hatched within the mother before giving birth or just after being extruded from the mother. The h development - i.e., the eggs remain in the body and the females give birth to live 40-60 cm young. It is believed that they reach sexual maturity at around 30 years and the life span has been variously estimated at 60 to 150 years.

The species was first identified in 1828 off the coast of South Africa. The family Rhincodontidae was not finalized until 1984.

The whale shark is fished for off TaiwanFor the political entity commonly known as "Taiwan," see Republic of China. The island of Taiwan ( Traditional: , Simplified: , Pinyin: Taiwn, Wade-Giles: T'ai-wan, Taiwanese: Tai-oan) is located off the coast of China in the Pacific Ocean. It is also kno and in the PhilippinesThe Republic of the Philippines is an island nation consisting of an archipelago of 7,107 islands, lying in the tropical western Pacific Ocean about 100 kilometers southeast of mainland Asia. Spain (1521-1898) and the United States (1898-1946), colonized. The population is unknown and the species is considered vulnerable by the IUCN.

In popular culture, this species is the leading example when it is explained that not all sharks are dangerous to humans. Nature documentaries frequently show footage of divers keeping pace with the giant fish, and the shark pays them no mind.