The world's smallest whale shark

Philippine environmentalists have just saved a whale-sized whale shark, and this may be the smallest of the big fish that is equivalent to this bus.

The whale shark is rescued in the eastern Philippines.Photo: WWF.

The International Fund for Nature Protection (WWF) said the fish washed ashore near the city of Pilar, east of the Philippines, last week. It is 38 cm long and returns to the sea immediately after being saved. This finding suggests that the coastline may be the breeding ground for whale sharks. WWF experts rarely see newborn whales. Therefore, they were forced to compare the size of the trapped shark with a fetus in the dead fish found in 1996.

Whale sharks are the largest fish in the world and can reach the size of a bus. They are not whales but they are not interesting either. Whale sharks live in tropical oceans and warm waters of the world. Considered to live outside the ocean, they also gather seasonally in some coastal areas.

Although large, whale sharks are gentle animals. Divers can swim near them without fear of being attacked. They feed on plankton, large algae, mollusks, small inks and vertebrates. Tiny teeth do not help the eating process of whale sharks. Instead, water is sucked in through the mouth and passed through the comb, then removed from the bow with a bow. Fish swallow everything that remains in the comb.

People rarely see whale sharks swimming in flocks because they like to live alone. Scientists believe that they migrate, but experts still do not know how far they can migrate. Whale sharks stop along the east coast of the Philippines from December to May every year. However, little is known about their location and reproductive behavior.