Study sheds new light on whale sharks

Scientists have discovered that whale sharks, the biggest fish in the ocean, get around — as in really get around.

A just-released study by Chicago-based geneticist Jennifer Schmidt found that the bus-sized sharks not only swim across oceans, they apparently breed with their counterparts in far-flung areas of the globe.

Schmidt, a University of Illinois at Chicago associate professor of biological sciences, now wants to expand the study by taking DNA samples from the four whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium in downtown Atlanta. The aquarium houses the only captive whale sharks outside of Asia.

The world’s biggest indoor aquarium obtained its whale sharks from Taiwan, an area not covered by Schmidt’s DNA study of 68 whale sharks in the wild.

“The opportunity to characterize these sharks genetically would nicely complement the existing study,” Schmidt said.

The study by Schmidt and her colleagues is one of the most comprehensive to date on the little-understood shark. It sheds new light on the behavior of the polka-dotted, filter-feeding giant that can reach 50 feet in length and weigh more than 20 tons...[AJC.com]