![]() In regards to the whale shark in particular these animals carry their eggs on them and a female can carry up to 300 eggs in a given cycle. These marine animals are more focused on producing lot’s of offspring (some sharks can lay thousands of eggs in a single year) rather than caring for an individual baby shark, while whales produce one offspring every 2 – 6 years so it is important for them to nurture their young and make sure they grow up healthy. Most species of shark on the other hand aren’t known to care for their young and do not nurture their children. When it comes to reproduction and nurture there is a significant difference in how the two types of marine animals are raised.Īfter birth female whales care for their young by feeding them milk and nurturing them until they are able to hunt for food and survive on their own. In fact while a whale is able to drown underwater a whale shark is able to suffocate above the water due to a lack of lungs or specialized breathing organs that would be necessary to to extract oxygen from the surface air.Īs a species sharks/fish are largely cold-blooded, lay eggs (most species lay eggs externally, while a few keep their eggs internal), extract oxygen from the water through their gills and do not nurse their young (depending on the species most fish/sharks either fend for themselves at birth or carry a sack full of nutrients until they can hunt on their own). Unlike whales sharks do not need to rise to the surface to obtain their oxygen as they possess gills. Whales are marine mammals and belong to the cetacean family which is made up of all species of whale, dolphin and porpoise.Īs marine mammals they are warm-blooded, produce milk to feed their children, give birth (whales have a pregnancy/gestation period) and breathe air.īecause whales breathe air they must frequently rise to the surface of the water to obtain their oxygen otherwise they could drown and while some species are able to hold their breath for up to 90 minutes they are still very limited in how long they can stay submerged. In regards to the differences between sharks (which are fish) and whales (which are marine mammals) there are a number of physiological differences among the two distinct species. ![]() While they may not be able to swallow a human it is possible that a person can still get caught in its mouth or get struck by an aggressive whale shark. In fact most marine biologists and specialists state that the whale shark isn’t considered a threat to humans and in some cases is even playful with divers, however despite this marine specialists warm people not to become too physical or aggressive with them and people should not approach these sharks for any reason as their nature is not always predictable. Surprisingly despite its large size it survives on a diet of plankton, krill, shrimp, larvae, algae and other small aquatic life forms, which is very different from other shark species that have large teeth and hunt large fish and/or marine mammals.Īlso unlike other sharks which attack, bite and chew their prey the whale shark consumes its food simply by swimming towards it with its mouth open and sucks up any small prey that it comes into contact with, similar to how a vacuum works.Īgain this is very different from species such as the great white shark which grabs its prey using its teeth and viciously shakes its head left and right to tear the flesh off of their food.Īlthough the whale shark is a massive animal luckily its throat isn’t nearly large enough to swallow a human or another marine mammal, so there is little to fear when swimming next to these large sharks. This shark has a flat head and a wide mouth which can reach nearly 5 ft. They also happen to be filter feeders just like the baleen whale species, however their filter feeding method is a bit different than a whales. The whale shark received its name due to its large size as some whale sharks are as large as several of the whale species. ![]() (hence the name whale shark), although some individuals believe that these sharks can grow much larger. The largest known whale shark measured in at just over 40 ft. In fact the whale shark is the largest fish (or shark for that matter) in the world. A whale shark is a shark, it is not a whale despite having the word “whale” in its name.
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