Animal · Mexico, Australia, Philippines
Whale shark
Rhincodon typus — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The whale shark is the largest fish in the world, growing longer than a bus, yet it feeds only on some of the smallest creatures in the ocean. It roams warm tropical waters worldwide.
Picture credit: diego_cue (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Simon Pierce / MarineMegafauna (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Elias Levy (CC BY 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the whale shark live?
Home: Warm tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide.
In the wild you find it in: Mexico, Australia, Philippines, Mozambique, Tanzania.
Conservation status from the IUCN: endangered.
The short profile
Fully grown it measures 8–14 m long. It weighs about 19 000 kilograms. On the menu: tiny creatures it filters out of the water.
The story behind it
Despite its enormous size, a whale shark is a gentle filter feeder, swimming slowly with its huge mouth open to strain plankton, tiny fish and fish eggs from the water using special filter pads instead of teeth for feeding. Each whale shark has a completely unique pattern of white spots on its skin, as individual as a human fingerprint, which scientists use to identify and track them over many years. They gather seasonally in a few special locations, such as off Mexico and Australia, where huge blooms of plankton or fish spawning attract dozens of sharks at once, offering rare chances for people to swim alongside them. Whale sharks grow and mature slowly, and threats from ship strikes and fishing nets, sometimes as bycatch, have caused their numbers to drop, leaving them endangered.
Find it on the globe
Whale shark is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Is a whale shark actually a whale?
No, despite its name and huge size, a whale shark is a fish, not a whale. It is the largest fish in the world, but like other sharks it breathes through gills and has a skeleton made of cartilage.
Are whale sharks dangerous to humans?
No, whale sharks are gentle filter feeders that pose no danger to people. They eat only plankton and small fish, have no interest in larger animals, and often calmly allow swimmers to snorkel alongside them.
How do scientists tell whale sharks apart?
Every whale shark has a unique pattern of white spots on its skin, similar to a fingerprint. Researchers photograph these patterns and use computer software to identify individual sharks and track their movements over time.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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