Wildlife
Whale sharks are the largest fish in the world, with the longest ever recorded at over 13.5m. Fortunately, they are harmless filter feeders that suck in plankton and small fish. Curiously, there are rows of tiny teeth within the whale shark's impressively large mouth that, as yet, serve no known function. These distinctively yellow-spotted sharks are migratory and found throughout the world's oceans, preferring the warm and tropical waters around the equator.
Scientific name: Rhincodon typus
Rank: Species
In order to see this content you need to have an up-to-date version of Flash installed and Javascript turned on.
Arabian giants
Whale sharks gather in Arabian waters during summer, but their lives remain a mystery.
Spectacular numbers of whale sharks gather in Arabian waters during the summer, but their lives still remain a mystery.
Speckled spaceship
Steve Backshall swims with an ocean giant that looks more like a submarine than a fish.
Steve Backshall swims with an ocean giant that looks more like a submarine than a fish.
Life on Ningaloo Reef
Dinner guests arrive to join Ningaloo Reef's feast.
Dinner guests arrive to join Ningaloo Reef's feast.
Ocean giants
The annual gathering of whale sharks off the Djibouti coast.
The annual gathering of whale sharks off the Djibouti coast.
Whale shark feeding
The world's largest fish survives on the smallest organism... or does it?
The crew seized an unexpected opportunity, when a perfect set of technical and animal circumstances converged, to film this behaviour for the first time. The diversion afforded by the tuna attack allows the unwieldy whale shark time to turn on the baitfish sheltering under its bulk. Interesting to the observers was that it didn't just ram feed but actively gulped deliberate great mouthfuls.
The Whale shark can be found in a number of locations including: Africa, Asia, Australia, Great Barrier Reef, South America. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.
The following habitats are found across the Whale shark distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Vulnerable
Population trend: Decreasing
Year assessed: 2005
Classified by: IUCN 3.1
The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is a slow-moving filter feeding shark and the largest known extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of 12.65 meters (41.50 ft) and a weight of more than 21.5 metric tons (47,000 lb), and there are unconfirmed reports of considerably larger whale sharks. Claims of individuals over 14 meters (46 ft) long and weighing at least 30 metric tons (66,000 lb) are not uncommon. The whale shark holds many records for sheer size in the animal kingdom, most notably being by far the largest living non-mammalian vertebrate, rivaling many of the largest dinosaurs in weight. It is the sole member of the genus Rhincodon and the family, Rhincodontidae (called Rhiniodon and Rhinodontidae before 1984), which belongs to the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. The species originated approximately 60 million years ago.
The whale shark is found in tropical and warm oceans and lives in the open sea with a lifespan of about 70 years. Although whale sharks have very large mouths, as filter feeders they feed mainly, though not exclusively, on plankton, which are microscopic plants and animals. However, the BBC program Planet Earth filmed a whale shark feeding on a school of small fish. The same documentary showed footage of a whale shark timing its arrival to coincide with the mass spawning of fish shoals and feeding on the resultant clouds of eggs and sperm.
The species was distinguished in April 1828 after the harpooning of a 4.6 metres (15.1 ft) specimen in Table Bay, South Africa. Andrew Smith, a military doctor associated with British troops stationed in Cape Town, described it the following year. The name "whale shark" comes from the fish's physiology, being as large as some species of whales and also a filter feeder like baleen whales.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the user-contributed encyclopedia. If you find the content in the 'About' section factually incorrect, defamatory or highly offensive you can edit this article at Wikipedia. For more information on our use of Wikipedia please read our FAQ.
Take a trip through the natural world with our themed collections of video clips from the natural history archive.
This is Planet Earth
Narrated by Sir David Attenborough Planet Earth was the ground-breaking series that explored the wild and beautiful parts of our planet like never before.
Nature's record breakers
Animal kingdom record breakers - how fast can a cheetah run, how heavy is an elephant and what's bigger than a dinosaur? Watch amazing video clips from the BBC archive and uncover the fascinating facts about our smallest primate, the longest stick insect and the most venomous snake.
The wildlife of Life
In autumn 2009, a major new series brought us life as we've never seen it before.
BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.
Migration
Adapted to swimming
Nomadic
Ovoviviparous
Active at birth
Visual communication