To illuminate the mystery, Wyatt and colleagues tracked stable forms of carbon and nitrogen in the sharks’ tissues, which allowed them to track what and when they’d eaten. Beyond what they eat at these yearly feasts, though, scientists know little about whale sharks’ diets. Whale sharks gather in the Gulf of Mexico when fish are spawning, for example, and at Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean the sharks show up in huge numbers during the annual mass spawning of red land crabs. The sharks stick to warm, tropical waters and tend to aggregate in locations where they take can advantage of prime feeding opportunities. The polka-dotted fish can grow up to about 40 feet in length and weigh as much as 47,000 pounds, nearly as much as four African elephants, Earth’s largest land animal, combined.
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