Just off the shores of Indonesia , scientists are live - tracking the social movement of the human race ’s biggest Pisces : whale sharks . in force of all , you could see this satellite data , demonstrate the whale sharks ' move on a single-valued function in near real - meter .
The expedition began last class in theBird ’s Head regionof eastern Indonesia , where researcher fromConservation Internationalattached tags to 16 of these 12 - metre - foresightful ( 40 feet ) benignant wildcat . It ’s become one of the most successful whale shark mapping projects ever , but the methods they used were amazingly irregular . Instead of actively trace them down , the investigator plunge into waters where fishing nets had accidently catch the whale sharks . By an rummy coincidence , which continues to baffle the scientists , all of the caught whale shark were adolescent males .
On Monday , June 27 , the scientists started their live - tracking of the whale shark using satellites . you may see the unrecorded map of the whale shark ' motion below . Although , understandably , they noted that there will be an unrevealed delay to the data to preclude any likely threat from sea poacher .
Map make byConservation International .
The data has already shed visible light on the lesser - known behaviour of this maritime species . For representative , one whale shark reached a depth of 1,808 meters ( nearly 6,000 animal foot ) – well deep than antecedently think .
Another surprise was how far this coinage journey . It was antecedently assumed these juggernauts stay in their known stomping grounds , however they were recorded travel distances of more than 1,300 kilometers ( 800 miles)–as far aside as the Philippines , Papua New Guinea , and the southerly Mariana Trench – and then give back to their true laurel .
manoeuver over to theConservation Internationalwebsite for more information on this project .
In the meanwhile , check out out some of the stunning picture taking from the enquiry expedition .
Image credit entry : Shawn Heinrichs
Image credit : Burt Jones and Maurine Shimlock
