Here’s Where You’re Most Likely to Find Whale Sharks

Whale sharks, Rhincodon typus, are the largest fish in the world. They can trace their ancestry to the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, 245–65 million years ago, and are members of the Orectolobiformes order. This elusive sea creature was not formally recognized until 1828, and sightings were rare prior to the mid-1980s. Now, however, we know a lot more about their global distribution and where you are most likely to find them.

What Do Whale Sharks Look Like?

You are unlikely to miss a whale shark because they are huge! At sexual maturity, they typically reach 30 feet in length, but individuals over 60 feet in length have been recorded. Their overall body color is gray-blue or gray-brown, and their back and sides are marked with a unique checkerboard pattern of light spots and transverse bars. The patterning is unique and can be used to identify individual sharks. Their bodies are streamlined with three prominent ridges on their sides. These sharks have broad, flat heads with short snouts. The first dorsal fin is much larger than the second, and their tail (caudal fin) is semi-lunate, which means it is almost crescent-shaped.

Whale Shark Feeding Behavior

Whale sharks need to find food to survive, so their feeding behavior and diet dictate where and when you are most likely to see them. There are only three filter-feeding sharks in our oceans, and the whale shark is one of them. Using their specially adapted fine mesh gill rakers, they can sieve out tiny prey, including microscopic plankton and nektonic (free-swimming) small crustaceans and schooling fish. However, because they can open their giant mouths over three feet wide, they will sometimes also capture tuna and squid. When feeding, whale sharks adopt either a suction filter-feeding method, which can be used wherever there is prey, or a passive feeding method. When passive feeding, they are in a vertical or near-vertical position with their head at or near the surface.

Preferred Habitats

Because whale sharks are fish, they do not have to return to the surface to breathe, as they obtain oxygen from water via their gills. Most other sharks from the Orectolobiformes order are benthic, which means they live in or near the sea floor. Whale sharks, however, are pelagic, which means they live in the open sea. When it comes to preferred depth, they can be found wherever their food sources reside. So, they have been seen at depths of 6,325.5 feet (and have stayed at greater depths for prolonged periods) but have also been spotted near the surface. You will find them both out at sea and closer inshore; they have also been sighted entering lagoons and coral atolls.

They have feeding sites where the concentration of plankton and other food is high. This is why they prefer warmer waters with surface temperatures of 69.8–86°F, which favor the growth of these microscopic creatures. If you spot whale sharks in coastal feeding sites, they are most likely juvenile males. Hundreds or even thousands of them can congregate at a time. They often return to the same feeding site year after year. Over the course of one day, they can travel between 14.9 and 17.4 miles.

Whale Shark Distribution

This species has a broad global distribution. They are found in warm and temperate waters, usually between latitudes 30°N and 35°S. That covers the whole of the Atlantic Ocean, from New York through the Caribbean, down to central Brazil, and from Senegal to the Gulf of Guinea. They are also found in the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Arabian Gulf as well as in the Pacific Ocean, from Japan to Australia, off Hawaii, and from California to Chile. This species is not recorded in the Mediterranean Sea.

To stand the best chance of seeing these magnificent creatures, you should head to Australian waters. In particular, they can be reliably spotted at Ningaloo Marine Park. This is related to a ‘food pulse’ in this location and the mass coral spawn, which occurs around March and April each year. Researchers have used radio-tracking to show that whale sharks often remain near Ningaloo Reef for extended periods during the aggregation season, sometimes staying in the area for several weeks.

Sightings are also common at Christmas Island and in the Coral Sea. There have also been confirmed sightings on the Midwest coast of Western Australia, the south coast of New South Wales, and in Commonwealth waters between Australia and Indonesia. However, this is not an exclusively Australian species. Whale sharks can also be seen in waters around India, the Maldives, South Africa, Belize, Mexico, the Galapagos Islands, and Southeast Asia.  

Migration Patterns

Whale sharks do not stay in one part of the ocean. We know that they are a highly migratory animal, but we still have a lot to learn about their exact patterns of migration. Their migration patterns may be both local and transoceanic. Satellite tracking has revealed that they can traverse hundreds of miles, and these migrations can take months, if not years, to complete. Detailed studies in the Ningaloo Reef area suggest that they may have seasonal migration patterns. For example, they aggregate each March and April on the continental shelf of the central western coast of Australia, when zooplankton concentrations are high.

Protecting Whale Sharks

Most importantly, the number of whale sharks is decreasing. It is estimated that the global population has decreased by half over the last 75 years. They are targeted for their meat and fins, get caught in fishing nets, and collide with ships in their migration corridors. These amazing creatures are vital to oceanic food chains and may even play an important role in transporting nutrients from productive coastal regions into nutrient-poor areas. We still have a lot to learn about them, and they deserve our respect and protection wherever they choose to go.