30.08.2020 Animal of the week: Whale Shark

Hi!

It is International Whale Shark Day today, so we thought, we would do this week's animal of the week about whale sharks.

Are whale sharks, sharks or whales?

Whale sharks are not whales and they aren't a mix of whale and shark. They are sharks.

So, why are they called whale sharks if they aren't whales?

Well, they are very big. Whale sharks normally grow to a length of 5.5-10 metres. However, the largest whale shark to be accurately measured was 18.8 metres long! That is about as long as a lorry or as high as a short oak tree. Basically, whale sharks are massive.

Habitat and Diet

Whale sharks prefer warmer waters. They live in all tropical seas. Every spring, they are known to migrate to the continental shelf of the central west coast of Australia.

The whale shark is one of the three known filter-feeding shark species in the world. Like whales, they eat plankton.

Images:

Image 1: This image is owned by Lachlan Ross on pexels.com.

Image 2: This image is owned by Derek Keats on pexels.com.

Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/animal/whale-shark
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/whale-shark

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