{"id":4060,"date":"2026-11-03T20:26:29","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T20:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/54700-kilometers-whale-shark-completes-record-breaking-journey\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T20:26:31","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T20:26:31","slug":"54700-kilometers-whale-shark-completes-record-breaking-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/54700-kilometers-whale-shark-completes-record-breaking-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"54,700 Kilometers: Whale Shark Completes Record-Breaking Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>A whale shark roaming the waters of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico logged more than 50,000 kilometers in ten years, the longest journey ever documented for a shark.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Oceanic Odyssey<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Named Milo, this 8-meter-long male <em>Rhincodon typus<\/em> has been closely tracked by researchers since 2017. In the following year, the shark vastly surpassed Bermuda Island, and in 2020 pushed its Atlantic exploration much farther north, even beyond the latitude of New York.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">Le P\u00e8re-Lachaise abrite 4 134 arbres et pr\u00e8s de 140 esp\u00e8ces animales, la n\u00e9cropole est devenue un refuge sauvage<\/span><\/section>\n<p>In 2019, 2021 and 2022, Milo favored the Gulf of Mexico, moving along the coasts of Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, before heading, as each year, toward the Yucat\u00e1n Peninsula.<\/p>\n<p>While whale sharks are reputed to be rather solitary creatures, they do gather off the coast of Canc\u00fan, in what scientists regard as one of the largest seasonal aggregations known for <em>R. typus<\/em>. In 2009, an aerial survey revealed the presence of around 420 individuals in a zone of barely 18 square kilometers.<\/p>\n<p>Taking advantage of the upwelling of nutrient-rich tropical waters, they can spend months feeding on zooplankton, small crustaceans and fish eggs, and are often joined by other giants of the seas, such as manta rays.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">On les croyait disparus depuis 1937 : gr\u00e2ce aux efforts des locaux, 90 de ces adorables primates ont \u00e9t\u00e9 sauv\u00e9s<\/span><\/section>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"cssc-content-video-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"Milo's track, 2018-2026\" width=\"680\" height=\"510\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/HF6hoXZcAkg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Flexible Whale Sharks<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>To precisely document Milo&#8217;s peregrinations, researchers relied on both the data from his satellite tags, changed five times, and on his unique arrangement of skin blotches, comparable to our fingerprints. The roughly 54,700 kilometers traveled provide a remarkable glimpse into the species&#8217; flexibility, alternating between long migrations and extended stays in the same regions.<\/p>\n<p>\u00ab <em>They are evidently as at home in the ocean depths as in coastal waters<\/em> \u00bb, notes Guy Harvey, of Nova Southeastern University. \u00ab <em>Long-term studies like this are essential to understand the life cycle of these animals with such remarkable longevity<\/em>. \u00bb<\/p>\n<p>As whale sharks are currently listed as <em>Endangered<\/em> by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, these data also prove valuable for guiding conservation efforts.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">Reckless, cette jument h\u00e9ro\u00efque qui a brav\u00e9 tous les dangers lors de la Guerre de Cor\u00e9e<\/span><\/section>\n<p>Previously, a study had revealed that whale sharks were able to regrow damaged tissues identically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2646,1260,257,527,301,354],"class_list":["post-4060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-completes","tag-journey","tag-kilometers","tag-recordbreaking","tag-shark","tag-whale","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4062,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060\/revisions\/4062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}