4.04.2007

The real attraction

Whale sharks! Rhincodon typus! The largest fish in the world! The GA Aquarium has 3 half grown whale sharks (4 until January) in a 6.2 million gallon tank and they say they have room for six full grown ones. GA Aquarium is the only aquaruim in the Western Hemisphere with whale sharks so it was worth the trip I think. They are pretty cool animals to watch though they are not vicious killers. They can grow to be 40+ feet long. Ralph, the larger one of the male whale sharks, died of a stomach infection, but the other male, Norton, is about 20 feet. They hope that the sharks will breed, but that has never happened in captivity and they have to be 25, as I learned in the video below that Andrew sent.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow; these look like amazing fish... or sharks, whatever!

Dawn said...

so how old do they live to be? 25 sounds old for a whale shark, but i am not an expert. i like that they named one of them norton. very fitting. =)

Anonymous said...

so they are fish! info. learned from the documentary video =)