whale sharks

ok if you dont know me i fucking love whale sharks theyre my favorite shark and probably ocean animal if youve never seen a whale shark before heres my awesome photo



so its common name is obviously whale shark but its scientific name is rhincodon typus and theyre carnivores (but they only eat small fish like sardines, or anchovies) theres more but you know haha



their group name is "school" which i think relates to their size being as big as a bus typically which is fucking awesome because theyre the biggest fish in the ocean (basking sharks come second) which are also fucking cool

usually whale sharks live up to 70 years and they weigh up to fucking 20 tons theyre fucking heavy like a goddamn tyrant with their size being up to 32 fucking feet long haha but they dont eat people so its not scary or anything not that sharks want to eat people its kindve a common misconception about sharks being scary and shit like you just look like prey flailing your legs around while you swim

theyre filter feeders so they basically vaccuum all the shit in front of them which you know with most fish they filter out all the shit they dont want to eat but if you can see that fish underneath the whale shark in the picture theyre called remoras and theyll eat the bacteria inside of whale sharks mouths they spend most of their time swimming underneath them (not just whale sharks but other whales nad large fish) 

you can see them here kind of swimming all over them haha its cute sometimes i call it like an apartment since they stick to them basically their whole lives like a whale shark apartment 

another crazy thing about whale shark they have thousands of teeth but theyre too small to see and even have fucking teeth in their eyes which is super weird but fascinating theyre called dermal denticles but theyre not meant to eat anything its more like a defense mechanism 

the first picture is their eyeballs and the second one is their actual line of teeth in their mouths which is super cool theyre kindve shapped like a bracelet haha

another cool thing as you may have expected whale sharks patterns are actually like fingerprints so you can track any whale shark just based off of the spots all over their body

you cant see whale shark eggs because they dont actually "make eggs" they give birth inside of the mother which kinda sucks i wish there were eggs because shark eggs are so fucking cool looking if youve never seen one but this is a whale shark blog not a bamboo shark blog haha but this is known as oviviparity heres this good depiction by ketrina yim

so yeah haha thats how theyre born which is super cool right i think its pretty fascinating theyre all grown inside the shark which must feel fucking weird

anyways yeah that was my blog about whale sharks im super fucking obsessed with them and will probably post more about them because theyre awesome and my favorite haha dave strider out