A Boy & His Whale Shark
It's not everyday I come home with a shark, a whale shark no less, the largest fish in the ocean. It looks a little like this:
** Knit Hat by Shelby; Whale Shark
from Tree House Toys & Books,
Eastwood Mall, Lansing, MI
517-367-7703 **
Now, a lot of you might be saying: "gee, Zachary, yesterday you were translating Neruda and today you have a shark on your head." And I would answer: "yes, and not just any shark, but the world's biggest" … granted, this one seems a lot smaller and plastic in real life, but there you go. Who am I to question the mysteries of nature and all that?
Plus, you might be mucking about in the ocean one day and swim by a Rhincodon typus and you could drop me a postcard later saying how nice it was to recognize a monster shark from close up thanks to reading this post. I know I'd appricate it.
If you have any more questions, the source of all fish wisdom and neat photos is, of course, Fishbase.com, which says the following about my friend and yours, the Whale Shark:
World's largest fish, which is harmless to human … a huge, blunt-headed shark with … a prominent checkerboard pattern of light spots, horizontal and vertical stripes on a dark background … it has small, scale-like teeth and feeds by filtering plankton with special sieve-like modifications of the gill bars … specimens rarely above 12 m. Often seen offshore but coming close inshore, sometimes entering lagoons or coral atolls … highly migratory between ocean basins and national jurisdictions, but returns to the same sites annually … highly valued commodity in ecotourism operations. Populations have been depleted in several countries by harpoon fisheries.
Some Common Names Might Include:
Vietnamese … Cá Nhám voi
Mandarin Chinese … 鯨鯊
Tamil … புள்ளீ உடும்பன் சுரா
Maldivian … Fehurihi
Japanese … Jinbeizame
Spanish (Cuban) … Pez dama
German … Rauhhai
French … Requin-baleine
Swahili … Vaame
Afrikaans … Walvishaai