It takes a lot of food (about 45 pounds per day) to sustain a whale shark. The sharks, the largest known fish on Earth, can grow between 18 and 32 feet long. As filter feeders that subsist on krill and plankton, whale sharks must swim vast distances to sate their appetites. Over the course of their lives (which can last more than 100 years), whale sharks travel distances that can exceed the circumference of Earth.
This animated map charts the journeys of 15 different whale sharks in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s based on observations from Movebank that span between 2009 and 2015.
The video begins with an overview of whale sharks and shows them swimming and feeding. A bathymetric map of the Gulf of Mexico (recently renamed in the US as the Gulf of America) then appears. It centers on feeding grounds off the southern coast of Louisiana where the sharks were first tagged. As the video plays, 15 animated colored tracks representing different whale sharks begin to appear. Some of the sharks meander around the feeding grounds while others head east and south.
A color-coded ticker tracks the distance traveled by each shark. Many of the sharks stay close to coasts, particularly in areas where shallow waters transition to continental drop-offs and the deep ocean. Some of the sharks, though, transit the deep waters of the gulf before ending up near Cuba or the Yucatán Peninsula. A graphic at the end summarizes the parts of the gulf where the sharks were observed most often, creating a sort of whale shark heat map.
The sharks observed in the map traveled an average of 4,600 kilometers (equal to the approximate width of the contiguous US), with one shark topping out at 11,100 kilometers. And although they travel immense distances, whale sharks are slow swimmers. At a speed of just five kilometers per hour, it takes some time for these gentle giants to cruise through Earth’s oceans.
More to Explore
- Check out more maps showing migrations and movements of osprey, blue whales, and white storks.
- Take a deep dive into more maps chronicling Earth’s oceans.
