The Largest Shark In The World

Monday, July 14, is Shark Awareness Day (and next month, Saturday, August 30, is International Whale Shark Day), so this is the perfect time to learn more about the world’s largest and most majestic shark, the whale shark! Despite their massive size, whale sharks are considered to be gentle giants of the ocean and are not aggressive towards divers. Also, they are very slow swimmers, averaging about 3.1 miles per hour.

They have huge mouths and are “filter feeders,” which means they feed on small fish, crustaceans, and plankton (which are microscopic plants and animals). Each whale shark has a stunning constellation of spots and stripes, which, just like our fingerprints, is unique to each individual shark. This helps scientists identify and safely track their movements as they migrate through the tropical oceans.

Incredibly, whale sharks can live up to 150 years, but more than 90% are killed before they are able to reach that impressive age. Great white sharks, tiger sharks, orcas, blue sharks, and blue marlin all prey on juvenile whale sharks. Although adult whale sharks have no known natural predators in the ocean, they are still considered an endangered species – humans remain their biggest threat, since whale sharks are illegally hunted and sold as food and can also be injured by large shipping vessels (via kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/facts/whale-sharks).

Hello, my name is Miss Sara, and in this blog, I will provide many more fascinating and educational facts about whale sharks, including a link to an article detailing their extremely unique eyesight. Nex,t there will be a few websites from IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) which will detail whale sharks and also important information on general shark conservation. Also highlighted is one of our main CCPL children’s databases, National Geographic Kids, and some entertaining and educational children’s resources from our CCPL catalog.

Important Resources:

Below are interesting (and educational) facts about whale sharks:

The whale shark is the largest shark in the world, with no real predators…they are gray, blue, or brown above, with a surface pattern of creamy white spots between pale, vertical and horizontal stripes. The belly is white. They can be as long as 41 feet in length, and weigh as much as 47,000 pounds; however, it is believed that there are some whale sharks which can reach lengths of up to 67 feet.
The whale shark has a very widespread distribution, found in all tropical and warm temperate seas, except in the Mediterranean. It is found throughout the Atlantic Ocean, from New York, through the Caribbean, to central Brazil, and from Senegal to the Gulf of Guinea. It is also found in the Indian Ocean, throughout the region, including the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf. In the Pacific Ocean it is found from Japan to Australia, off Hawaii, and from California to Chile.
Along with the basking shark and the megamouth shark, the whale shark is one of the three known species of filter-feeding sharks. It feeds mainly on plankton and nekton, small crustaceans, schooling fish, and sometimes on tuna and squid. Whale sharks may also sometimes feed on phytoplankton, macroalgae, krill, and the larvae of the Christmas Island red crab.
In spite of its large size, the whale shark is timid. Divers usually hold onto the tails of these sharks and swim with them, and the whale sharks never seem to attack. There is some risk that a diver getting too close to a whale shark could get sucked into the filtering system that these sharks use for feeding. Another risk is that they can create problems for small boats that they may accidentally knock into. Sadly for the sharks, contact with very large boats can result in severe injuries.
It is believed that they can have up to 300 pups at a time. This would be considerably more than other shark species, yet only a small fraction of them live to the age of maturity… Young whale sharks have been found in the stomachs of Blue sharks and Blue marlin. It is believed that this species of shark doesn’t mate until it is about 30 years old. They can live from 70 to 150 years of age.

Website Source

https://kids.kiddle.co/Whale_shark

Below are even more facts about the whale shark, courtesy of the Marine Megafauna Foundation (Global Whale Shark Program):

Top 10 Whale Shark Facts

Below is a link to an article from Smithsonian Magazine, detailing the eyesight of whale sharks:

Whale Sharks Have Tiny Teeth On Their Eyeballs

Below is an article about whale shark conservation (and other whale shark topics) from IFAW, International Fund for Animal Welfare:

WHALE SHARKS

Below is another article from IFAW, which details why all sharks are integral to sustaining the overall health of the marine ecosystem:

How Sharks Keep Our Oceans Healthy

Below is another article from IFAW, detailing interesting facts about different types of sharks and their mysterious lives:

Fascinating Facts About Sharks

Additional Resources

Click on the link below to explore our children’s database and search for all things sharks:

National Geographic Kids

Engage kids and young students to broaden their educational horizons with reputable, special, authoritative, and age-appropriate digital content that brings them the world in a way they have never seen before. National Geographic Kids will take them on amazing adventures in science, nature, wildlife, culture, geography, archaeology, and space.

*CCPL Staff picks are chosen by CCPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We’d love to hear your ideas too, so write to us and tell us what you’d recommend!*

*All book cover photos are from Goodreads/all title descriptions are from the CCPL COSMOS website.

You may also check out our CCPL catalog for both entertaining and educational children’s resources on whale sharks and general shark conservation, such as:

Sea of Constellations by Melissa Cristina Márquez

Maren the whale shark loves her life as the biggest, brightest fish in the sea. She spends her days exploring the water around her and finding fresh new snacks as she travels. But one day, the ocean goes dark, and Maren’s adventures come to a halt. With only the glow from the scales on her back and her best friend, Remy the remora, by her side, Maren sets out on her greatest quest yet–to cross the ocean and ask the Aztec goddess Huixtocihuatl about the darkness and to figure out how to bring back the light. Along the way, she meets new friends and exemplifies the power of sharing!