rekordy: Whale shark

Evidence: 95 • authority: 72

The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known extant fish species. An individual with a length of 18.8 m (61.7 ft) has been considered the largest reliably recorded. The whale shark holds many records for size in the animal kingdom, most notably being by far the largest living non-cetacean animal. It is the only living species of the genus Rhincodon and the only extant member of the family Rhincodontidae, which belongs to the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. Before 1984, it was classified as Rhiniodon into Rhinodontidae. An extinct species, Rhincodon ferriolensis, was described in Europe (probably in Spain), in the…

Evidence: 42 • authority: 92

Only One Percent of Important Shark and Ray Areas in the Western Indian Ocean Are Fully Protected From Fishing Pressure.. The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) is known for its high diversity of chondrichthyans (sharks, rays, and chimaeras). However, intense fishing pressure has led to severe population declines and local extinctions of several species. The Important Shark and Ray Area (ISRA) process is a collaborative, evidence-based approach used to identify critical habitat for chondrichthyans. We analysed ISRAs across the WIO to quantify the diversity of research methods used to identify them, evaluate spatial overlap with designated marine protected areas (MPAs), model the influence of severa…

Evidence: 33 • authority: 88

An overview of whale shark movement ecology projects in the Red Sea Research Center. Background The Red Sea Research Center is part of a relatively new university on the Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). KAUST officially opened in 2009 but began global collaborative research projects in 2007. Among the early discoveries arising from these collaborative projects was the identification of a whale shark aggregation site in the Red Sea. KAUST researchers have been studying this aggregation site since 2008. Approach KAUST researchers have employed various methods and technologies to track whale sharks, including acoustic tagging, satelli…

Evidence: 31 • authority: 92

Catchability Pattern of Cartilaginous Fishes with an Updated Their Diversity and Distribution Along the Egypt's Mediterranean Coast: Conservation and Bycatch Challenges.. The diversity and fisheries status of cartilaginous species along the Egyptian Mediterranean coast were investigated up to 2025. A total of 69 species were recorded, comprising 2 chimaeras, 41 sharks, and 26 rays and skates, including new records such as Cetorhinus maximus , Odontaspis ferox , and Dalatias licha . The coastline was divided into five zones (A-E), with the highest species diversity observed in Zone D (western Alexandria to Matrouh), followed by Zone C (off Alexandrian coast). The total landed catches and byc…

Evidence: 26 • authority: 72

Endangered species, as classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), are species which have been categorized as very likely to become extinct in their known native ranges in the near future. On the IUCN Red List, endangered is the second-most severe conservation status for wild populations in the IUCN's schema after critically endangered. In 2012, the IUCN Red List featured 3,079 animal and 2,655 plant species as endangered worldwide. The figures for 1998 were 1,102 and 1,197 respectively.

Evidence: 26 • authority: 92

Flow-driven patterns of whale shark movement in the Red Sea.. Dynamic ocean features (e.g., currents, eddies) can drive large-scale transport of water masses and nutrients, facilitating localized plankton blooms and affecting the migration patterns of higher trophic levels. The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is a highly migratory planktivore known to aggregate in areas of ephemeral food abundance. While the species’ presence has been widely correlated with environmental variables such as water temperature and chlorophyll-a, the Red Sea population appears to be primarily associated with other oceanographic variables. Here, we investigated factors influencing juvenile whale shark presence with…

Evidence: 24 • authority: 92

Nutrient availability drives local seasonal movements of an endangered marine megafauna species.. Understanding drivers of animal movement is key to predicting species distributions and guiding conservation. Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) are an endangered species known for broad seasonal migrations across oceans influenced by factors like temperature and prey availability. However, finer-scale local movements within aggregations are less studied. We analysed four years (2016-2019) of sightings data from a year-round aggregation in South Ari Marine Protected Area (SAMPA), the Maldives. Using MODIS-Aqua remote sensing data, we examined seasonal patterns in chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and sea surfa…

Evidence: 21 • authority: 80

Figure 6—source data 1. Number and IUCN Red List status of chondrichthyan species in IUCN Red List categories by family (alphabetically within each order).

Evidence: 21 • authority: 72

The basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) is the second-largest living shark and fish, after the whale shark. It is one of three plankton-eating shark species, along with the whale shark and megamouth shark. Typically, basking sharks reach 7.9 m (26 ft) in length, but large individuals have been known to grow more than 10 m (33 ft) long. It is usually greyish-brown, with mottled skin, with the inside of the mouth being white in colour. The caudal fin has a strong lateral keel and a crescent shape. Other common names include bone shark, elephant shark, sailfish, and sunfish. The basking shark is a cosmopolitan migratory species found in all the world's temperate oceans. A slow-moving filter fee…

Evidence: 21 • authority: 72

The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or great white, is a large shark. It is closely related to the mako sharks, the porbeagle, and the salmon shark. It is a robustly built species with a grayish upperside and a white underside. The white shark is one of the largest living shark and fish species, though it is still smaller than the whale shark and basking shark. It has about 300 triangular, serrated teeth that are continuously replaced. Its massive, fatty liver can reach over a quarter of its body weight, providing buoyancy and storing energy. The species is partially warm-blooded, an adaptation that allows it to remain active in cold…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and porpoises. Dolphins and porpoises may be considered whales from a formal, cladistic perspective. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. Their closest non-cetacean living relatives are the hippopotamuses, from which they and other cetaceans diverged about 54 million years ago. The two parvorders of whales, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have had their…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Although it remains unclear where whaling was practiced as an organized industry for the first time, the earliest documentation demonstrating a well-established industry are from the year 1026 from the Basque coastal regions of Spain and France. From there, the whaling industry spread throughout the North Atlantic and later to the rest of the world and became very profitable in terms of trade and resources. Some regions of the world's oceans, along the animals' migration routes, had a particularly dense whale population and bec…