![]() ![]() Whale sharks have a distinct checkerboard pattern of lines and dots on their top/dorsal side that would be useful for a shark that tended to lay hidden in plain sight on the substrate, but whale sharks are constant movers, so why exactly they retain their bottom dweller camouflage pattern after millions of years is not quite clear. Whale sharks belong to the order Orectolobiformes and are related closer to carpet sharks such as wobbegongs and nurse sharks. These two sharks have more in common with great whites than they do with whale sharks. The other two plankton feeders are both lamnoid sharks and include the megamouth shark and the basking shark. Whale sharks are one of only three types of sharks that through convergent evolution some 60 to 30 years ago became plankton feeders. They also eat krill, small fish, jellyfish, and squid. Like some species of whales, the whale shark has been able to achieve it’s great size by eating the smallest food source plankton. ![]() Only true mammalian whales are greater in length than whale sharks, with the blue whale being the largest creature by mass to ever exist on this planet. Second largest cartilaginous fish ever to exist and places them only second in length next to the Megalodon shark that existed some 20 million years ago and as recently as 1.6 million years ago. The largest ever recorded was just over 41ft long, but rumors by fishermen say that they may grow over 46ft in length which makes whale sharks the Whale Sharks, Rhyncodon typus, are the largest cartilaginous fish in the world today.
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