Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #whalesharks
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🦈WHALE SHARK🦈
#Whalesharks are the largest fish in the sea, reaching almost 19m! They are one of only three filter-feeding shark species, the others being the megamouth shark and basking shark. They use gill filters to catch plankton, jellies and small fish. #Sharktober
#Whalesharks are the largest fish in the sea, reaching almost 19m! They are one of only three filter-feeding shark species, the others being the megamouth shark and basking shark. They use gill filters to catch plankton, jellies and small fish. #Sharktober
We usually think of filter-feeding as happening automatically as the animal swims with its mouth open, but whale sharks are actually very active hunters. They use active suction to catch small animals near the water's surface. #Sharktober #whaleshark
#Whalesharks typically prefer tropical and temperate open oceans, but their slow migrations often bring them near shore to feed. These aggregation sites, including #SouthAfrica's southern coast, often benefit greatly from #ecotourism as a result of these beautiful visitors.
We've learned more about #whalesharks in the last decade than all the preceding years combined, so by way of #DecadeinReview, here's my take on some of the key developments (a thread)
A quick squizz at #GoogleScholar shows 1,690 entries for Rhincodon typus (the scientific name of whale shark) before 2010, and 3,800 entries since. I know there's a big date bias in GS, but little doubt that it's been a huge decade for WS #science
One of the Big Things that emerged was the phenomenon of whale shark *aggregations*, or as we like to think of them, *constellations*. The biggest known to science, >400 animals at once, was described in 2011 journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
