Whale Sharks Research Paper

In the year 1828 the first whale shark was discovered by scientists. Whale sharks are the largest fish in the sea, measuring lengths of up to 40 feet long. That is about the size of a bus. Even though the largest whale shark in the world was 40 feet long scientists think that the species could grow even larger than that. Whale sharks are carnivores so t hey eat meat. That means that they have an giant menu of small sea creatures to choose from. Their favorite meals to eat are plankton, krill, fish eggs, red crab larvae, and small squid. They can open their mouths 5 feet wide so they scoop up any small fish or plankton up when they swim. Whale sharks are filter feeding creatures that means that they scoop anything up in their mouth including water and then they filter out the water so just the nutrients are left behind. A whale shark can filter 1500 gallons of water per hour. …show more content…
To be a ram breather means that they which means they have to ram water through their gills and keep swimming to stay alive. The ancestors of the whale shark used a different kind of breathing it is called buccal pumping. Buccal pumping is when they pumped all the water through their mouth and over their gills. Skates and rays which are the whale sharks cousins also breathe this way. That means that they belong to the group called Chondrichthyes. Whale sharks have a distinct pattern of polka dots, and lines on them. These patterns help the shark stand out from all the other sea creatures. Every whale shark has different spots in different places. There spots and lines are like fingerprints with us. No two sharks have the same patterns of spots and