Video: World’s Biggest Gathering of Whale Sharks

By Brandon Keim May 2, 2011 | 3:10 pm | Categories: Animals

To see a single whale shark — the world’s largest fish, a solitary behemoth that can grow to school-bus size — is a rare experience.

Seeing hundreds gathered in one place is unprecedented.

“It’s one of the most incredible gatherings of animals that’s ever been recorded. It’s mind-blowing,” said marine biologist Al Dove of the Georgia Aquarium. “As someone who studies whale sharks, which have a reputation of being something you see once in a blue moon, the idea of finding 400 in an area of the size of a couple football fields is unheard of.”


The so-called Afuera gathering, described April 29 in Public Library of Science One, took place in August 2009 off the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, not far from the waters around Cabo Catoche. Dozens of whale sharks have converged there each summer since 2002, drawn by crustaceans that feed on massive plankton blooms fueled by upswellings of nutrient-rich deep-sea water.


video at link

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/whale-shark-gathering/