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The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is a slow moving filter feeding shark that is the largest living fish species. It can grow up to 12.2 m (40 ft) in length and can weigh up to 13.6 tonnes (15 short tons). This distinctively-marked shark is the only member of its genus Rhincodon and its family, Rhincodontidae (called Rhinodontes before 1984), which is grouped into the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. The shark is found in tropical and warm oceans and lives in the open sea and can live for about 70 years.[3] The species is believed to have originated about 60 million years ago. Although whale sharks have very large mouths, they feed mainly, though not exclusively, on plankton, microscopic plants and animals (a whale shark was observed feeding on a school of small fish in the BBC program Planet Earth).[1]
As a filter feeder it has a capacious mouth which can be up to 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) wide and can contain between 300 and 350 rows of tiny teeth.[4] It has five large pairs of gills. Two small eyes are located towards the front of the shark's wide, flat head. The body is mostly grey with a white belly; three prominent ridges run along each side of the animal and the skin is marked with a "checkerboard" of pale yellow spots and stripes. These spots are unique to each whale shark and because of this they can be used to identify each animal and hence make an accurate population count. Its skin can be up to 10 centimetres (3.9 in) thick[5]. The shark has a pair each of dorsal fins and pectoral fins. A juvenile whale shark's tail has a larger upper fin than lower fin while the adult tail becomes semi-lunate (or crescent-shaped). The whale shark's spiracles are just behind the eyes.
The whale shark is not an efficient swimmer since the entire body is used for swimming, which is unusual for fish and contributes to an average speed of only around 5-kilometre-per-hour (3.1 mph). The largest specimen regarded as accurately recorded was caught on November 11, 1947, near the island of Baba, not far from Karachi, Pakistan. It was 12.65 metres (41.50 ft) long, weighed more than 21.5 tonnes (47,300 lb), and had a girth of 7 metres (23.0 ft).[6] Stories exist of vastly larger specimens — quoted lengths of 18 metres (59 ft) are not uncommon in the popular shark literature — but no scientific records exist to support their existence. In 1868 the Irish natural scientist Edward Perceval Wright spent time in the Seychelles, during which he managed to obtain several small whale shark specimens, but claimed to have observed specimens in excess of 15 metres (49.2 ft), and tells of reports of specimens surpassing 21 metres (68.9 ft).
In a 1925 publication, Hugh M. Smith describes a huge whale shark caught in a bamboo fish trap in Thailand in 1919. The shark was too heavy to pull ashore, but Smith estimated that the shark was at least 17 metres (56 ft) long, and weighed approximately 37 tonnes (81,500 lb), which have been exaggerated to a more precise measurement of 17.98 metres (58.99 ft) and weight 43 tonnes in recent years. A shark caught in 1994 near Tainan County in Southern Taiwan is reported to have weighed 35.8 tonnes (78,887 lb).[7] There have even been claims of whale sharks of up to 23 metres (75 ft). In 1934 a ship named the Maurguani came across a whale shark in the Southern Pacific Ocean, rammed it, and the shark consequently became stuck on the prow of the ship, supposedly with 4.6 metres (15.1 ft) on one side and 12.2 metres (40.0 ft) on the other.[8] No reliable documentation exists of those claims and they remain little more than "fish-stories".
Info taken from Wikipedia.com
Credits to Wikipedia.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark
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Whale Shark got its fins cut off.by dryais182,468 views
Have you looked at the size of the animal and the cage. Just sit in youre room for a week and dont leave and see how stressed you get. Theres a reason large animals in captivity die young. Go sell some more mercury filled dolphin meat to schools you pricks.
Pathways345 1 month ago
damn japanese either eat or imprison every fucking thing in the sea
MrSomewhere 1 month ago
Amazing
Nepo35 6 months ago
lol thats so cute, it opens its mouth cuz it knows its feeding time. But yeah it should be free in the ocean, no harm keeping it for a few days in captivity though, provided it stays healthy.
iHacksorzz 8 months ago
SUPERSIZED KOI!!!!!!!
XD
appleman1324 8 months ago
no cages
MrDustin2004 9 months ago
Why is it being kept in a cell?
athame57 9 months ago
we got one of these in our fishing place
and its free to watch!
neverdie987 10 months ago
That whale shark reminds me of a giant catfish...
worldseeker3 10 months ago
1:31 nom nom nom
bderousse 1 year ago