Even the biggest fish in the sea has secrets. But now scientists have captured rare footage of the whale shark's courtship behavior. which offers new insights about the elusive sexual lives of these whale sharks
The video was taken in May 2024. Researchers went into the water after a spotter plane went down and spotted a female whale shark in 40 meters of water off Western Australia's Ningaloo Reef. Shortly after the shark was sampled, A male whale shark came along. And the research team recorded video footage of the interaction between the two sharks. The research of this research team is published This month in Frontiers in Marine Science–
whale shark (rhinoceros codon print) are elasmobranchs. It is a group of cartilaginous fish that includes sharks, rays, skates and sawfish. The whale shark is also the largest fish in the world. It is about 30 feet (9 m) long, according to the American Museum of Natural History. The largest whale shark ever. Nearly 61.67 feet (18.8 m) long, the largest whale shark egg found in 1953 was nearly 0.3 meters long.
The animals' mating behavior remains somewhat mysterious. Courtship has only been observed off St. Helena Island and Ningaloo Reef.
At Ningaloo, where the behavior was recently described, male whale sharks outnumber females three to one, based on data collected from more than 1,000 sharks in the area over the past decade.
Sharks off the coast of St. Helena have been observed positioning themselves in a belly-to-belly fashion. Even though the latest confrontation didn't go that far. At the May 2024 event, the team observed a male shark follow and attack a female several times.
“Male sharks increase their swimming speed. and charged the female's tail fin again. This time they briefly touched each other and bit the tail,” the team reports. “The female responded by quickly rotating with her pectoral fins pointing downward toward the male.”
But the latest couple isn't made in heaven. The female turns away from the male and “Down to the depths quickly,” the team stated that the behavior they observed “It does not appear to result in successful mating,” although it is possible that the two sharks mate in deeper water. The team concluded that the female they observed may not have been fully grown given its size.
Whale sharks are considered to be Endangered species– According to AMNH, the species' population may have decreased by 50% over the past 75 years. These whales are illegally hunted for meat. Caught as a by-product. and their habitat has been harmed by oil spills. plastic pollution as well as human transportation and tourism activities.
The latest video shows that despite the many threats But the giant fish continues to exist. Although maybe not for this particular couple. Love is in the air, er, water for whale sharks. And scientists were able to capture it on camera.