The whale shark is the largest shark and the largest fish in the world.
The length of the whale shark reaches up to 20 meters and weighs 34 tons.
For man, the whale shark does not present any danger (it does not even react to the touch of divers).
Unlike other sharks, the whale shark feeds only on plankton.
The speed of the whale shark is 5 km / h.
The whale shark inhabits the warm waters of the world’s oceans.
The whale shark is the least studied sharks among all sharks (people learned about the whale shark only in 1828).
The number of teeth in a whale shark can be up to 15 thousand, but the teeth are small not exceeding 6 mm in length. Teeth of the whale shark is used not for biting but for “locking” the prey in the mouth.
In an hour, a whale shark can pass through the mouth to 6 thousand cubic meters of water (water is filtered through the gills and plankton settles in the stomach).
In captivity, whale sharks grow 1.1-1.3 times faster than in nature.
The thickness of the skin of a whale shark can reach 14 cm. With age, the patterns of spots on the skin of the whale shark change.
Whale sharks perform distant migrations (24 km pass 24 hours a day).
Whale sharks always stay close to the surface of the water (not deeper than 70 m).
Whale sharks are active around the clock, they sleep for a short time.
In a number of countries, the catch of whale sharks is prohibited: the Maldives, the Philippines, the USA, Mexico, Thailand, India, Australia.
The whale shark quickly recover from heavy wounds, sometimes they do not leave any scars or traces.
The whale shark has no means of self-defense, but it compensates for it by the size of its huge body.
The skin of a whale shark is used as a tanning raw material, its carcass is used in Chinese medicine.
In Japan and Vietnam, they practically did not catch and did not use the whale shark, because they considered meeting with the whale shark a good omen (in Vietnam it was even respectfully called as “Mr. Fish”).
Observations of whale sharks are a good tourist business, where divers dive into the water with whale sharks and even touch them (such tours are especially developed in the US, Mexico, Australia, the Philippines, Maldives, and Seychelles).
The whale shark is the largest shark and the largest fish in the world.
