Rhincodon typus
Smith, 1828 · speciesAt a glance
Sources13 archives
Databases and archives Rhincodon typus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation20 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility13 096 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System13 246 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI67 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics78 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
Catalogue of LifeCOLtaxonomy↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of 18.8 m.McClain CR, Balk MA, Benfield MC, Branch TA, Chen C, Cosgrove J, Dove ADM, Gaskins LC, Helm RR, Hochberg FG, Lee FB, Marshall A, McMurray SE, Schanche C, Stone SN, Thaler AD. 2015. "Sizing ocean giants: patterns of intraspecific size variation in marine megafauna". PeerJ 3:e715 . The whale shark holds many records for size in the animal kingdom, most notably being by far the largest living nonmammalian vertebrate. It is the sole member of the genus Rhincodon and the only extant member of the family Rhincodontidae, which belongs to the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. Before 1984 it was classified as Rhiniodon into Rhinodontidae. The whale shark is found in open waters of the tropical oceans and is rarely found in water below 21 C. Studies looking at vertebral growth bands and the growth rates of free-swimming sharks have estimated whale shark lifespans at 80–130 years. Whale sharks have very large mouths and are filter feeders, which is a feeding mode that occurs in only two other sharks, the megamouth shark and the basking shark. They feed almost exclusively on plankton and small fishes, and pose no threat to humans. The species was distinguished in April 1828 after the harpooning of a 4.6 m specimen in Table Bay, South Africa. Andrew Smith, a military doctor associated with British troops stationed in Cape Town, described it the following year. The name "whale shark" refers to the fish's size, being as large as some species of whales, in addition its filter feeding habits which are not unlike that of baleen whales.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology2
Life cycle & reproduction4
Habitat & environment2
Uses & economy1
Other traits4
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Rhincodon typus has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Rhincodon typus carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 1022×GoaT · Publications compiled by GoaT data curators and public · GoaT · Metadata for targets - Squalomix
diploid1×GoaT · Publications compiled by GoaT data curators and public
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Rhincodon typus. Above itBeside it, each dot is one dated fossil find — few enough to count, so they are drawn individually rather than as a graph.
How it livedPBDB
Record type26 345 records
Origin
Range
Depth
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions10 of 21 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| SEAOBISlocation not on record | 35 |
| University of California San Diegolocation not on record | 9 |
| Sydney, AU | 8 |
| Paris, FR | 4 |
| Guy Harvey Research Institutelocation not on record | 2 |
| University of Texas Biodiversity Collections (UTBC)location not on record | 2 |
| Chicago, US | 2 |
| Australian National Fish Collectionlocation not on record | 2 |
| South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversitylocation not on record | 2 |
| Stockholm, SE | 1 |
| FishBaselocation not on record | 1 |
| Barcelona, ES | 1 |
| Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Fish and Wildlife Research Institutelocation not on record | 1 |
| Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collectionlocation not on record | 1 |
| Toronto, CA | 1 |
| Los Angeles, US | 1 |
| Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Marinas, Instituto Politécnico Nacionallocation not on record | 1 |
| Washington, US | 1 |
| Brussels, BE | 1 |
| Kagoshima University Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| Ann Arbor, US | 1 |
Where the DNA of Rhincodon typus was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.