An Australian study has found that whale sharks are the largest carnivores in the world, according to the newspaper.The Guardian“.
In the study, published in the Journal of Marine Biology, the researchers made a surprising discovery about the eating habits of whale sharks, and accordingly gave the largest fish in the sea the prominent global title.
And it turns out that the giant fish routinely enjoys eating seaweed, along with huge amounts of krill, which means it has officially replaced the Kodiak bear as the world’s largest carnivore.
Krill is a type of marine arthropod found in Antarctic waters. It is a shrimp-like crustacean, and its density sometimes reaches from 10 thousand to 30 thousand per cubic meter.
Scientists made the discovery while studying whale sharks off Ningaloo Reefs in Western Australia.
“Everything we thought we knew might not actually be true,” said Mark Meekan, a fish biologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences.
The scientists analyzed potential food sources, ranging from tiny plankton to large seaweed, for amino acids and fatty acids, then looked at what was found in skin samples from whale sharks.
“This study indicates that they eat a fair amount of plant matter, in fact more than krill,” Mikan said.
“These are very large animals, and when the animal is huge, it needs a lot of food,” he added.
Another part of the study involved collecting and testing the faeces of the whale shark, and the results showed that it was eating krill, albeit in limited amounts.
“Whale sharks have simply gotten around this in an evolutionary sense by being able to digest marine arthropods that come in the way of their mouths rather than pushing them out,” Mikan said. “They turn bycatch into part of their diet.”