Female whale sharks have officially been named the biggest fish in the sea.
There has been an ongoing debate amongst marine experts for years. Some say that male whale sharks are bigger, while others believe the female is bigger.
However, a new study which was published in Frontiers in Marine Science concluded that females are officially bigger.
Their average length is 14 metres.
A team of fish biologists at the Australian Institute of Marine Science tracked 54 individual whale sharks. They conducted more than 1,000 measurements with stereo-video cameras.
The team also discovered that the size increase of female whale sharks could help when it comes to producing babies.
Only one pregnant whale shark has ever been documented, but it held up to 300 babies! Most sharks carry between two and 12.
Whale Sharks FACTS:
• They grow around 20 to 30cm a year.
• Whale sharks are friendly and pose no threat to humans.
• Their names refer to their size – whale sharks are as big as some species of whales!
• They live in tropical and warm-temperate seas all over the world.
• Whale sharks are filter feeders, which is a type of feeding that only two other types of shark (megamouth and basking sharks) use.
• Each shark has between 300-350 tiny teeth in their big mouths!
7 Responses
um what is the point
Wow i always believed that the whale shark was the biggest but was unsure what gender was bigger. I love whales an creatures under the sea
WOW! That’s a lot of babies for one whale shark to hold, especially if the average amount per whale shark is between 2 and 12!!! Whale sharks are adorable. What does a baby look like
wow she is big and beutiful now i want a whale shark and also five whale sharks including baby whale sharks and become a whale shark train and sub for megeul on cobra kai.
wow
Are Blue whale biggest or are whale sharks, how did that whale shark hold 300
wowzers 300 babies? and I thought triplets was a lot!