Whale Shark Teeth & Mouth: How Do They Feed?

Quick Take

• Whale sharks have over 3,000 teeth, yet they don't use a single one to eat. See the teeth details →
• The whale shark's mouth is different than nearly every other shark species, and that difference is what allows them to dominate open-ocean feeding. Explore the unique mouth →
• One of their feeding techniques is almost entirely passive, allowing them to exploit food sources most predators can't even access. See the passive feeding technique →

The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is presently the world’s largest fish. In fact, it may be the largest fish to have ever lived in Earth’s oceans. Whale sharks can grow up to about 40 feet long and can weigh up to 45,000 pounds. For these sea creatures, their immense size depends entirely on their diet and specialized mouth. Without their unique feeding apparatus, whale sharks would not be able to survive in the open ocean. Continue reading to learn everything you need to know about whale shark teeth and their mouths.

What is Special about a Whale Shark’s Mouth?

The whale shark’s mouth is massive, measuring up to five feet wide, spanning the entire front of its head. Unlike most sharks with mouths on the underside of the head, the whale shark’s mouth, located at the very front of the snout, enables it to filter feed efficiently on the water’s surface.

The whale shark’s mouth contains hundreds of rows of tiny, vestigial teeth and specialized gill filters. Despite having over 3,000 teeth in 300+ rows, whale sharks do not use their teeth for feeding. Whale sharks are filter feeders that trap food in mesh-like pads while expelling water through their gills.

The presence of these teeth provides evidence of the species’ transition from a predatory animal to a specialized plankton feeder. However, the whale shark’s teeth serve little to no purpose in modern feeding, though some theories suggest they might help grip food or provide protection.

Whale sharks have evolved into filter feeders, rendering their 3,000+ tiny, non-functional teeth vestigial remnants from their carnivorous ancestors. Because these teeth do not affect the whale shark’s ability to feed, they remain in place since there is no evolutionary pressure to eliminate them.

How do Whale Sharks Feed?

Whale sharks are filter feeders that have around twenty filter pads distributed through their mouths. As they swim, they open their mouths, allowing large amounts of water to pass through these filter pads.

Whale sharks have 20 spongy pads, 10 per side. The pads are made of cartilage and work like a super-fine mesh filter. As the shark swims with its mouth open, it gulps in huge amounts of water filled with tiny organisms. The pads trap everything, even prey as small as a millimeter, while the water gets pushed out through the gill slits.

Many whale sharks use a method known as vertical feeding, which allows them to maximize their intake of nutrient-rich water. Vertical feeding is a specialized behavior in which a whale shark stops swimming forward and hangs upright in the water column, sucking in dense patches of food. This method is almost entirely passive, as it relies on the movement of water to bring food into the mouth and gravity to move it down the throat.

Whale sharks are migratory fish that travel around the world to get to their favorite feeding and breeding grounds. Christmas Island is famous for its annual red crab migration, during which millions of red crabs march from the forest to the sea to breed. This mass spawning produces billions of larvae, which attract whale sharks to the island’s waters to feed.