![]() You will swim 2-3 times with the whale sharks before the boat heads back to Isla Mujeres for lunch and relaxing beach time. There can be up to 30-40 whale sharks in one area, and all you have to do is jump into the water and swim alongside them. This adventurous day starts with an exhilarating boat ride to the area where whale sharks feed. You might not see any pups, but you can swim with whale sharks with Aquaworld’s Whale Shark Encounter. Cancun’s peak whale shark season takes place in June and July. Whale shark season in Cancun starts around mid to late May and ends in early to mid-September. Swim with Whale Sharks! Whale Shark Season CancunĬancun is one of just a handful of places in the world where whale sharks congregate. What do baby whale sharks eat?īaby whale sharks probably eat small crustaceans called krill while adult whale sharks also eat algae, plankton, and sometimes small squids and vertebrates. Another marine animal whose babies are called pups is the seal. What is a baby whale shark called?Ī baby whale shark, right? Nope! A baby whale shark is called a pup. Full-grown whale sharks eventually weigh around 21 tons (19 metric tonnes). How much does a baby whale shark weigh?īaby whale sharks weigh just a few pounds, and some sources suggest that they grow at the rate of about 49 cm a year, but due to a lack of data it has been difficult for scientists to be sure. This is one of the few whale shark facts we have about their offspring. When the pups are born they are about 16 to 24 inches in length, which is amazing, since full-grown whale sharks on average are about 18 to 33 feet (6 to 10 m) long. They believe the female retains sperm from one mating and produces a steady stream of pups over a long period of time. Scientists concluded that female whale sharks have hundreds of eggs and pups, but that the pups are not all born at once. They believe that all eggs are all fertilized by the same male. From this one study scientists believe that whale sharks are ovoviviparous, in other words, they produce young ones from eggs which hatch inside their bodies. We know little about the baby whale shark because all the information we have is based on just one study, when a pregnant female whale shark was captured in July 1996. Currently, there is no accurate estimate of the global whale shark population, but they are considered vulnerable or endangered. One tagged whale shark traveled 8,000 miles over 37 months. They have very large mouths that can be 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) wide and are filter feeders, feeding almost exclusively on plankton and small fishes, so they pose no threat to humans. ![]() The average lifespan of whale sharks is 70 to 100 years and they don’t attain sexual maturity until the age of 30 years. Whale sharks are covered in a beautiful pattern, with a bluish-gray to brown back with white spots and a white underside. They aren’t whales, but they are indeed sharks and are the biggest fish in the sea. We do know quite a bit about adult whale sharks. The life and habits of a baby whale shark are mostly still a mystery. The unfathomable distances they travel and the impossible depths they reach make it very hard to track and study baby whale sharks…but the things we DO know about them are fascinating. They have been around for a long time, yet to this day we know very little about the life and habits of this species. The baby whale shark and the adults are one of the oldest species on Earth today, thought to have developed around 60 million years ago.
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