![]() ![]() Global warming and climate change is an issue. See Related: 21 Endangered Plants Around the World Ocean Warming Oil slicks from tanker spills and oil rig disasters may threaten whale sharks, though dead whale sharks have not yet been observed near these disaster areas. Taiwan and the Philippines are the main areas where whale shark hunting occurs, despite long-standing bans on fishing, importing, exporting, and selling whale sharks and their meat in Taiwan, India, and the Philippines. ![]() Whale sharks are still commercially hunted in some areas of the world, and since their population is unknown, this hunting could potentially represent a serious threat. See Related: Great Hammerhead Shark Threats Up to 400 may gather where tunny spawn is occurring, for example. Though they swim in deep waters, large groups of whale sharks gather periodically in coastal waters to feed on seasonal food sources. Whale sharks are found in tropical and warm temperate oceans, including the South Atlantic, South Pacific, and the Indian Ocean. Whale sharks reach adulthood at around 30 years of age and may live for up to a century.Ĭheck out these other types of sharks around the world. Whale shark reproduction is largely a mystery, though one female is known to have contained over 300 small “pups” who are likely born in sequence rather than in one huge swarm. Though a human could theoretically be accidentally sucked into a whale shark’s mouth if they were swimming close to its lips when it decided to gulp krill or fish, this is never known to have occurred. Young whale sharks sometimes play with human divers also. Humans are safe from these creatures as whale sharks are generally neutral or even slightly friendly to human beings, allowing swimmers to “ride” them for a distance. For this reason, whale sharks can target swarms of small animals or clouds of fish eggs and sperm in the spawning grounds of various species. They can filter feed by opening their mouths while swimming or by actively gulping and expelling water. Whale sharks eat large algae, krill, plankton, fish eggs, various larval forms of ocean animals, and small fish or squid. These giant fish swim slowly through the warm tropical and subtropical seas. Despite their name and formidable size, Whale sharks are extremely gentle creatures and eat only tiny organisms collected via filter feeding. Whale sharks have huge, wide mouths, which is one of their most notable features. Whale sharks are deep blue with pale patterns of speckles, with pale underparts. The species is likely to be 60 million years old or older, surviving from the last days of the dinosaurs. The largest scientifically measured whale shark was 12.7 meters long and weighed no less than 21.5 tons. The whale shark is an enormous fish, measuring 5.5 to 10 meters long and weighing an average of 18.7 tons. Estimated numbers left in the wild: Unknown.Also known as: Whale Shark or Rhincodon typus.What Protections for Whale Sharks Are Making an Impact?.How Important is Ecotourism to the Survival of Whale Sharks?.What is the Prognosis for Whale Sharks?.Organizations for the Conservation of Whale Sharks.The study has been published in the journal Ecology. “They are a lot less efficient than what we’d expect them to be if they’d evolved just to eat krill,” Meekan said. They are turning by-catch into a part of their diet.”Īnother part of the study involved collecting and testing whale shark poo, with the results showing they were certainly eating krill – but were not metabolising much of it. “Whale sharks have simply got round this in an evolutionary sense by being able to digest the seaweed. “Do you throw it up? Energetically that’s a very costly thing to do because you’ve just spent all this energy collecting it. When you get a gut full of food but there’s also a lot of algae what do you? “But it costs lots of energy to push their mouths – open like a huge net – through the water. ![]() “These are very big animals and when you’re a huge animal you need lots of food,” he said. He believes the size of the whale shark has prompted an evolutionary response that has effectively turned by-catch – such as the brown sargassum seaweed common at Ningaloo – into food. “This study suggests they are feeding on quite a bit of plant material, more so in fact than krill,” Meekan said. Then they looked at what was present in skin samples from whale sharks. ![]() Scientists carefully analysed possible food sources, ranging from tiny plankton to large seaweed, for amino and fatty acids. ![]()
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