FROM PANAMA TO MARIANA TRENCH: FEMALE WHALE SHARK MADE A RECORD!For two and a half years, scientist
FROM PANAMA TO MARIANA TRENCH: FEMALE WHALE SHARK MADE A RECORD!For two and a half years, scientists followed the movements of Anne, a whale shark, during which she swam from the coast of Central America to the Mariana Trench.In 2011, researchers put a transmitter on Anne near Coiba Island in Panama. In the following 841 days, Anne’s transmitter sent a signal to the ARGOS satellite when it swam close to the surface. These trasmitter allowed the team to follow its movements to the south to the Galapagos Islands and throughout the Pacific to the Mariana Trench, to the south of Japan and the east of the Philippines. She traveled a distance of 20142 kilometers.-Whale shark route from Panama to the Mariana Islands (black track) tagged in September 2011, and old record from Mexico to the Marshall Islands (red track, tagged in September 1995).The finding reinforces the position of the whale shark as one of the animals that travels most, along with leatherback turtle, gray whale and the arctic tern. In 2016, the IUCN cataloged the species for the first time as threatened. Biologists calculate that tropical and subtropical seas have less than half of whale sharks that they had 75 years ago, which increases the urgency of their protection.Read also: This is why whale shark aggregate just in 20 sites!Photo: A whale shark at Gladden Spit, Belize. Source Heyman et al.,2001. Reference (Open Access): Guzman et al., 2018. Longest recorded trans-Pacific migration of a whale shark (Rhincodon typus). Marine Records -- source link
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