Whale sharks may be the biggest fish in the ocean, but their feeding habits have remained mysterious. Now, new camera footage from the backs of these gentle giants has captured them doing something scientists rarely get to see: hunting for food far below the surface.
The footage reveals that whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) spend far more time feeding underwater than scientists realized and that they use a surprising variety of foraging techniques that had never been documented before.
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Olivia Maule is a science journalist whose beats include space, biotechnology and the environment. She holds a B.A. in biology and a B.S. in anthropology from the University of Florida and completed a master's degree in science communication at U.C. Santa Cruz. A 2025 AAAS Mass Media Fellow, she wrote stories and produced videos during a summer at El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico's largest newspaper, and has written for Eos, Mongabay, Science magazine and Stanford Report. Olivia is a native Spanish and English speaker.
