Giant Whale Fish Swimming With People

Giant Whale Fish Swimming With People. People don't know about The biggest fish in the sea, a whale shark can weigh many tons and grow to more than 45 feet in length. It’s named not only for its great size but its diet; like some whale species, the whale shark feeds on plankton. A filtering apparatus in its mouth allows it to capture tiny marine life from the vast amount of water it swallows. But it is a shark—a kind of fish with cartilage rather than bone for a skeleton—a slow-moving, polka-dotted, deep-diving shark.

De la Parra and a group of American scientists set out this morning from Isla Holbox off the Yucatán Peninsula. The sleepy tourist island, whose primary vehicles are golf carts, has become a research center where scientists study whale sharks. The animals spend most of their lives in deep water, but they congregate seasonally here off the coast of the Yucatán, as well as off Australia, the Philippines, Madagascar and elsewhere. No one knows for sure how many whale sharks are in these waters, but the best estimate is 1,400. The global whale shark population may number in the hundreds of thousands.