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"Reaching 40 feet long and weighing up to 15 tons, whale sharks are the world’s largest fish. They feed by filtering plankton and fish eggs from a vortex created by their opening mouths — and as shown in a first-of-its-kind photograph of a whale shark pooping, activities at the other end of the fish are equally behemoth in proportion."
"Dove estimated the main plume in the photograph to be 30 feet long and 20 feet wide, and the smaller about 8 feet by 10 feet. If it’s three feet thick, the nutrient slurry would have a volume of 2,000 cubic feet. “Imagine you’ve got a big aggregation, dozens or hundreds of whale sharks, doing this all at the same time. That’s a lot of nutrients,” he said. Dove hopes to collect samples from just such a group."
Aerial shot from the Gulf of Mexico and photo from the Georgia Aquarium:
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