Whale Shark - The Largest Fish In The World / Documentary (English/HD)

The whale shark is undisputedly the largest shark and fish in our oceans. Given its humongous size, it’s still possible to see and encounter one that is kept in aquariums such as in China, Japan, and the Georgia Aquarium (in the U.S.). Despite lots of facts available about them, little is known about their lifespan, variety of sounds they make, age, eating and migration habits, and where they often reproduce as they can stay submerged at 1,500 meters (that’s about 5,000 feet) below sea level.

Another incredible fact about this mega-shark species is that it has as much as 3,000 small teeth in as many as 300 rows unlike other shark species which often possess not more than 30 rows of teeth.

Being a relatively recent discovery to science, the Whale Shark, which is scientifically referred to as Rhincodon typus, was first discovered in 1828 by Dr. Andrew Smith giving it an official description later in the same year after it was first sighted off the South African coast. By strict classification, this behemoth animal which holds the title of the largest fish and largest shark is more of a shark than a whale. It is their ginormous sizes that make people assume that it is a whale.

This shark species are so rare to the point that ever since it became known up to one and a half century years later in the early 1980s, confirmed sightings and encounters of this shark species were not more than 350. It is easily identifiable by its distinctive white spots and stripes on a dark-bluish gray background. Their underbellies are often pale with no markings. The skin is as thick as 4 inches (about 10 centimeters) and even thicker in some places by the deliberate action of the shark when it sometimes pulls the muscles underneath the skin together.

Individual whale sharks can be identified by the unique patterns of white dots around their pectoral fins and the slits behind their gills. A group of scientists now use a modified “Groth Algorithm” (not “growth algorithm”) to identify whale sharks after making modifications to the original NASA’s “Groth Algorithm” which NASA uses in identifying stars. It seems after all, that space and sea do have many things in common.

The whale shark tips the scale in terms of its size and weight. It is generally agreed that whale sharks can grow to lengths measuring a whopping 12 meters or 40 feet! The mouth alone is 4 feet (or about 1.2 meters) in width! In fact, many believe that certain adult whale sharks that are well over this benchmark lurk beneath our oceans, waiting to be discovered and measured. This is because the largest ever seen whale shark clocked at about 18 meters (that’s about 60 feet) in length! However, most whale sharks grow to an average length of 6 to 8 meters (about 26 to 33 feet).

Narrator: Larry G. Jones

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