Whale Sharks in Hawaii Information
Whale Shark, whale sharks in Hawaii, seeing a whale shark in Hawaii and especially Oahu is a thrill of a lifetime. Rare ? Indeed ? Impossible ? No I don't think so so as long as you have the time, the boat and the the patience to wait the Hawaii whale sharks out.
The
whale shark is a filter feeder primarily eating macro-algae,
plankton, krill, Christmas Island red crab larvae, and lastly squid
or vertebrates are also among the whale shark's diet. The whale
shark for your information is one of three filter feeders- the other
two are basking sharks and the megamouth shark. The whale shark has
many rows of teeth- none play any role in their eating habits.
The whale shark sucks in a mouthful of water, closes its mouth and
expels the water through its gills. During the slight delay between
closing the mouth and opening the gill flaps, plankton is trapped
and then swallowed.
FYI- The whale shark's gills trap anything between 2 and 3 millimeters in diameter.
The whale shark although looking exactly like their meat eating cousins are not efficient swimmer since it uses its entire body- graceful yes, fast agile not at all. In fact, the whale sharks average about 3.1 miles per hour. This is one of the reasons whales sharks are very easy to swim along with.
The size of whale sharks varies but most whale sharks average about 25 foot long the biggest around 40 feet. The whale sharks is an enormous fish, the biggest known fish in the sea. The weight of the whale shark is can be 13 tons at 40 feet long. Now that is a big fish. Seeing a whale shark in Hawaii this size is rare, usually we see the 15-25 foot whale sharks and never have we seen them in schools- very solitary in their existence.
FYI- The largest whale shark was caught on November 11, 1947, near the island of Baba, not far from Pakistan. It was 41 feet long and weighed more than 21.5 tons(47,000 lb).