Whale sharks, the world’s largest fish, eat significant amounts of plants and algae, scientists reveal in a surprising new study out today in the journal Ecological Monographs.
The sharks aren’t necessarily vegetarians, but they can sometimes go for weeks or month without eating, say researchers from Japan. The vegetative fare may be how the fish fill in their diets when prey is scarce.
“Whale sharks are a globally threatened but very poorly understood species,” said Alex Wyatt, a marine ecologist at the University of Tokyo in Japan, who led the new research. “Despite their massive size… we still know relatively little about them.”
Whale sharks are indeed massive. The polka-dotted fish can grow up to about 40 feet in length and weigh as much as 47,000 pounds, nearly as much as four African elephants, Earth’s largest land animal, combined. The sharks stick to warm, tropical waters and tend to aggregate ...
