Scientists attached video cameras to the world's largest fish and learned many interesting things about them
Scientists have for the first time obtained underwater video footage of whale sharks' lives and made a surprising discovery. It turns out that the largest fish on the planet feed differently than previously thought, writes The Independent.
To study their behavior, researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science attached small cameras to the dorsal fins of whale sharks. The devices recorded everything that happened for 24 hours, after which they automatically detached from the animals. Scientists then located the cameras and analyzed the collected materials. This method caused no harm to the sharks.
Based on video recordings and an analysis of more than a hundred scientific papers, researchers compiled the most comprehensive catalog of whale shark behaviors to date, which includes 36 different types of actions.
The main discovery is that whale sharks don't only feed near the water's surface. Videos showed that they actively feed at depths of up to 70 meters. Moreover, sharks use various feeding methods: they can slowly move with an open mouth, filtering small organisms from the water, or actively hunt large schools of krill when they find them.
Researchers note that most of the time these fish feed in small portions, constantly collecting food throughout the water column. However, when they find a large accumulation of krill, they switch to a more intensive feeding method.
It also turned out that whale sharks use more diverse feeding strategies than other large filter-feeding animals, such as basking sharks or whales. According to scientists, this helps them survive in tropical seas where food is unevenly distributed.
So far, observations have only been conducted on a group of juvenile whale sharks near Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. In the future, researchers plan to place cameras on other individuals in different regions of the world to better study the life of this rare species.
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