Whale sharks should not be difficult to find for scientists. They are huge: they are the largest fish of the sea and perhaps the largest fish that have existed. They are found in warm oceans around the world and according to shark standards, they are slow swimmers.
But somehow they also manage to be very reserved: scientists do not know where they look away and have never observed it before.
However, they finally have some clues. Scientists suspect that magic can be occurring in the waters around Santa Elena, a remote volcanic island in the south of the Atlantic Ocean where Napoleon Bonaparte He was exiled and died. It is the only place in the world where it is known that male and female adult whale sharks are regularly gather in approximately equal numbers, and food does not seem to be the main attraction.
Kenickie Andrewsthe manager of the Marine Conservation Project at St. Helena Trust, says that he has seen male sharks chasing females, nibbling their pectoral fins and “showing” females, similar to the mating rituals observed in other sharks, including large whites.
“What we have seen here is a classic shark courtship behavior”he said. “To this day we have not seen a successful intercourse, but it is proof that whale sharks are in our waters trying these behaviors.”
Whale sharks usually measure 12 to 18 meters (39 to 59 feet), weigh up to 14 tons and are plankton dining rooms; All sharks have a unique pattern of white spots in its upper part.
Scientists say they need to know where they are mating and giving birth to sharks to protect those areas, possibly creating marine reserves where threats such as fishing are forbidden. Whale sharks are listed as in danger of extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature; The group says that its population has been “Widely decimated”.
Simon Pierce, who has studied whale sharks worldwide, said he has photographed mate suspected scars in sharks in Santa Elena, probably when the male sharks bit their pectoral fins to hold them and place themselves in mating position.
A suspicious mating behavior of whale sharks has also been informed in Australia And sharks also gather in places like Mexicothe Arabic and the Maldives, but that seems to be equivalent to harassment of males to immature females, explains Pierce, executive and co -founder director of the Marine Megafauna Foundation Balefic Foundation. That is not the case in Santa Elena, where adult and adult females are present.
Fishing experts in Santa Elena have also provided stories of eyewitnesses of what they said were instances of whale shark mating. The officials described a lot of uproar on the surface of the water by two huge sharks playing belly with belly, but those sightings were not captured in video and are not considered sufficient proof by scientists.
Cameron Perry, a research scientist at the Georgia aquarium in Atlanta, has been working with colleagues on the island to place labels with cameras to investigate what the whale sharks are doing, but they have found some technical difficulties: Sharks are submerged more than 2,000 meters (6,561 feet) and the labels cannot support the pressure.
“We have some very tempting and provocative videos,” said Perry. “We have two sharks about to make contact, and then our camera falls.”
Perry is not sure of what sharks could be doing well below the surface, but he hopes that the new technology that is being developed to help answer that question. “It’s just a game of numbers in terms of how many can we enter the water.”
Alistair Dove, who has previously conducted investigations in Santa Elena, said he has seen male whale sharks requesting contact of adult females, including rotating his classpers, or sexual organs, in what he said was “the equivalent shark of an erection.”
“These sexual behaviors are very, very rare in whale sharks”Said Dove, now executive director of the Museum of Science and History in Jacksonville, Florida.
“This is one of the great questions without answer about the largest fish in the world,” Dove pointed out.
Andrews, from St. Helena Trust, said she was hope that someone could capture video evidence of the Ballena Shark mating, but acknowledged that the presence of researchers and labeling efforts could inadvertently alter the shark mating practices.
“Maybe they don’t want to be seen,” he said. “Maybe, like everyone else, they need privacy.”