world's biggest fish is whale shark - Image Credit: Wikipedia

The world's biggest fish is whale shark.  The whale shark can grow up to 20 metres and weigh about 13,000 kilogrammes. The whale shark should not be confused with a whale (whales are mammals, they breathe air into lungs, are warm-blooded, feed their young milk from mammary glands, and have hair).

Whale sharks are to be found in world's tropic and warm-temperate seas in places such as Pemba, Zanzibar, Indonesia, Madagascar, Western Australia, Honduras, Philippines, Mexico, etc.

The whale shark has five large pairs of gills. It has a pair of dorsal fins and a pair of pectoral fins. The whale shark has a big mouth which is about 1 - 2 metres wide and in that mouth are 300 rows of tiny teeth. The whale shark is a filter feeder - suspension feeding by straining suspended matter and tiny food particles from water. It thus does not pose any danger to humans. Whale sharks are gentle and playful with divers and not man-eaters. The whale shark has a slow speed of about 5 kilometres per hour.

The life span of a whale shark is about 100 years. It has eggs and internal fertilization occurs in the body thus giving birth to young ones after reaching sexual maturity at 30 years. Other species of sharks with similar filter feeding are basking shark and the mega-mouth shark.

The shape of a shark's tooth it determined by what it feeds. Some species of sharks are extremely dangerous and will feed on you within seconds and will eat just about anything. Sharks such as the shortfin mako shark will burst into high speeds of more than 50 kilometres per hour thus making them the fastest fish in the world.

And yes, the extraordinary skills of sharks as predators has always fascinated and frightened man.

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