Islands In The Stream 2001: Whale Shark Close Encounter

This whale shark, approximately 30 ft long, swam beneath NOAA resource manager John Halas off the coast of Belize at sundown. It was just below the surface, feeding on material from dog snapper spawning aggregations. Notice the remora taking a free ride on the whale shark, just behind the dorsal fin. There were several (possibly as many as 10-12) whale sharks in this area, a primary gathering site during fish spawning. It was not possible to count them all at once. Most, if not all, of the whale sharks have been tagged and data is being collected on their movement patterns. It is difficult to see, but if you pause the clip just as the remora appears, a tag can be faintly spotted just to the left and forward of the remora. Try to spot this tag and remora while viewing the video. Video courtesy of John Halas, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Audio clip from DJ Lenin -SD.

Please visit source: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/islands01/log/may17/may17.html

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• NOAA
• Ocean
• Explorer
• oceanexplorer
• Shark
• Whale
• Whale Shark
• whale-shark
• Encounter
• deep
• diving
• aquatic

[DeepBlueDJinn]

Obscure reference, the movie Kon Tiki, a whale shark almost capsized their craft.

[OceanicLover7]

amazing creature