A traditional balsa raft called the Kon-Tiki moves slowly on the ocean. Explorers are trying to prove an ancient migration route. But at the moment they are finding something else more interesting as they peer down into the water. The adventurers have a traveling companion: a whale shark! On one side of the raft, they spot the fish’s huge head. On the other side of the raft, they see its tail. The shark circles the raft for about an hour. Finally, one of the explorers drives a harpoon into its skull. The shark breaks the harpoon. It swims away.
That was in 1947. People didn’t know much about the whale shark then. But they knew more about it than the people who first discovered the mysterious fish in 1828. Today, we know more about whale sharks than people did at the time of the Kon-Tiki exploration. But we’re still far away from knowing as much about whale sharks as we do about other animals.
Whale Shark Facts
Fingerprints without fingers. Whale sharks have flat heads. Short barbels—organs that act kind of like a cat’s whiskers by helping whales sense their surroundings—dangle from their nostrils. The sharks have brown or gray backs, and each has a unique skin pattern of white lines and spots. These markings act like fingerprints. Scientists use them to identify and track individual sharks.
Teeth without biting. It’d be pretty easy for a whale shark to fit you inside his mouth. He can open it five feet wide! Inside, you’d find as many as 3,000 teeth arranged in rows. But those teeth are tiny—just about three times thicker than a strand of spaghetti. Whale sharks are meat lovers. But they’re also filter feeders. They don’t use their teeth to eat. Instead, they filter tiny bits of food out of big gulps of water.
Living for a long, long time. For the most part, whale sharks like to hang out alone, though they sometimes share feeding grounds with other whale sharks. They seem to like warm, tropical temperatures. But people have found them in chilly northern waters too. Whale shark females give birth to about 300 live fish at once. Many don’t grow to be adults. But those that do can live for a long time—100 or 150 years!
