World's Biggest Fish!
The Whale Shark is NOT a whale, it's just big! It's the biggest living fish that never walked on land! It falls just shy of the estimated size of Megalodon, and it's about 60% the length of the largest animal that ever existed, the Blue Whale. Don't get it twisted, these things get BIG. At 60 feet (18.8m), they get as long as a semitruck with a full-sized trailer. Most of them are about half that size. They have to be exceptionally long lived to reach maximum size and they're currently under threat.
Whale sharks are entirely passive. They're obligate ram ventilators and filter feeders, which means they must constantly swim forward with their mouth open to be able to breathe and eat. As big as they are, they casually move at about the same speed as we walk. That doesn't mean they're unathletic. When they want to, they can move at bursts of a body-length per second. They spend almost all of their time eating near the surface in the tropical sun because that's where the most microorganisms can be found. However, they are some of the ocean's deepest divers. We've tracked them diving over a mile deep to take advantage of good food sources.
Their mouths are about 4-5 feet wide and you could probably fit in there a moment. They wouldn't let you of course. They hate getting big stuff in their mouths. Their esophagus is only about the size of a quarter, which is about the size of ours. They do have teeth, but not for chewing. If you couldn't swallow it whole, neither can they. As they swim forward, water rushes through their mouth and out of their gills. But heavier particles fall out of the current towards the back of their mouth. When enough particles accumulate there, they'll swallow!
Obviously with a mouth that big, stuff is bound to get caught in there. Whale sharks can not only clear the way with water, they can do a stomach eversion. They're capable of turning their stomach inside out into their mouth to get rid of anything they can't digest. Kinda crazy!
(Yes, a baby whale shark)
Whale sharks are ovoviviparous, a difficult word for a difficult explanation. The female will lay eggs inside herself, the pups will hatch from the eggs, and then emerge from the mother live. This is different from what we have as viviparous animals because we get consistent nutrients from our mothers while we develop. The whale shark's eggs are detached from new nutrients after being laid. One pregnant whale shark was caught with about 300 pups inside! That's a lot of roommates!
If we look at this whale shark's eye, we see similar flecks as we do in the surrounding skin. Sharks are covered in dermal denticles, or skin teeth, all over their bodies. Whale sharks have teeth in their eyes! This is to protect them from damage and parasitism. Not only do they have armored eyes, they can retract them all the way into their head! They live to an estimated 80-130 years, and they really don't want to do it blind.
Whale shark populations have decreased by 50% in the last 75 years. Living at the top of the water along the Earth's largest tropical currents means whale sharks are the perfect candidate to die from unintentional boat strikes. Not only that, but there's a lot of tourism taking people to dive with these beautiful creatures. Why are we letting people pay to mess with an endangered species in the wild? I don't know! I don't think tourists and tour guides should be following them around in propeller boats harassing them. I'd hate to lose this beautiful creature to trade lines and tourism.
I really like the whale shark. It looks like you made a shark but the instructions said it was supposed to be longer so you got out a rolling pin. When I was in elementary school, my teacher called my parents to the school. She wanted them to get me to stop lying to all the other kids. She maintained that there was no such thing as a whale shark! I'll be honest, I don't like teachers so much. But I do like whale sharks! I'm still here at my big age telling all their business. Beautifully dappled, harmless, silly faced, and BIG, what a great plan for an animal!