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WHALE SHARK FACTS |
Description
Largest fish in existence. Blue-grey or brownish with a distinctive pattern of white spots and vertical lines, paler underside. Prominent ridges on sides. Broad, flat head and very wide mouth bearing about 300 rows of minute teeth in each jaw. Large tail fin with bigger upper lobe.
Filter feeds on a variety of plankton including crustaceans, fish eggs and small fishes. Has filter screens on the gill slits, can suction feed. Prefers cold-water upwellings with temperatures 21-25 degrees C where plankton is abundant. Highly migratory; thought to follow plankton productivity. Biology poorly known, but one pregnant female containing around 300 pups has been recorded. Whale Sharks are viviparous (they give birth to live young), but the young develop in egg-cases and hatch inside the mother before she gives birth. Known to be free-swimming at 40-50 cm.
Author credit: Sue Morrison / Western Australian Museum
Habitat
Oceanic to depths of 1000 metres. Seasonally close inshore at plankton-rich locations, e.g. Ningaloo Reef.
Food
Plankton or particles
Range
Northern Australia
Species Description is from Museums Field Guide, Atlas of Living Australia at website at https://lists.ala.org.au Licensed under Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Classification
| Class: | Chondrichthyes | | Order: | Orectolobiformes | | Family: | Rhincodontidae | | Genus: | Rhincodon | | Species: | typus | | Common Name: | Whale Shark |
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