Whale Shark off the coast of the Yucatan
Another view of one of the whale sharks we swam with from Holbox, Mexico where they guarantee an encounter in August. Incredible experience - especially when you consider that Jacques-Yves Cousteau claimed to have only every seen two in his many years of sailing the oceans studying undersea life.
The whale shark, ''Rhincodon typus'', is a slow-moving filter feeding shark and the largest extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of 12.65 metres and a weight of more than 21.5 tonnes , and there are unconfirmed reports of considerably larger whale sharks. This distinctively-marked fish is the only member of its genus ''Rhincodon'' and its family, Rhincodontidae , which belongs to the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. The species originated about 60.. more
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