You may not see them in the picture, but he knows they're there. All the water that he takes in to scoop up his meal is simply passed out of his body through his gills, which have sieve-like membranes covering them to filter out the little critters and prevent them from escaping. If you were accidentally scooped up by the whale shark you would find yourself being spit back out through an interesting process called gastric eversion . The whale shark actually turns it's stomach inside out and spits it out through its mouth, ejecting the entire contents. You may wonder why this fish is called a whale shark.
Whale sharks are rare, elusive creatures that scientists still know very little about.
One interesting adaptation of the whale shark that scientists have discovered is that it has sensors that run the length of its body which are used for detecting pressure changes in the surrounding water. Whale sharks swim with their huge mouths wide open to chow down, making it hard for their proportionately small eyes to see where they're going. Go to the Creature World portal to see the other creatures featured on this site. See the World Record Index to see all the records featured on Extreme Science. Animals Copyright 1997-2001, Elizabeth Keller, All Rights Reserved.