Follow the links on the left to access my Lesson Plans.

There are also a number of links to assist students with their work on the various questions within each Lesson Plan.

Don’t forget to check out the Forum to post questions and see what's happening out in the field. This can be done by clicking on "Forum" in the navigation bar to the left and then click on "Padbury Senior High School"

DAILY ADDITIONS!!!!

It's like a diary where I add bits each day and may answer questions in this section as well as personally. To get there click on the 'My Highlights' link to the left to check out what’s been happening day by day! I will be dotty thru seeing dots - a lot I hope.

Whale Shark General Information

The whale shark ( Rhincodon typus) is the largest fish in the ocean. It is a shark, not a whale and is a member of the Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fishes) group of fishy animals. It has a skeleton made up of cartilage rather than bones. Cartilage is the stuff on the end of bones and is softish and flexible not like the hard rigid bone we have.

Whale sharks are filter feeders and can open their mouths to a width of around 1m. They feed on tiny organisms called plankton that is made up of lots of small animals. These include krill, crab larvae and jellyfish and lots of other tiny animals. They have gill-rakers that consist of fine mesh to filter out organisms as small as 1mm in size. We will be looking at gill rakers when we dissect a fish during the Marine Science at Padbury SHS.

Not a great deal is known about breeding at present, but we do know that they carry out internal fertilisation and give birth to live young. Males can be identified by the presence of two claspers near the pelvic fin.

Whale sharks can be found in warm temperate and tropical seas between latitudes 30°N and 25°S. They prefer water temperatures around the 21-25°C mark, but are found at Ningaloo in water temperatures around 27°C.

Whale sharks can grow to over 12m in length, the size of a large bus. At birth they are around 50cm in length.

Scientists don’t know a great deal about the habits, migratory patterns and breeding patterns of whale sharks at present. They need your help to take photos for digital identification and recordings of information whenever you sight a whale shark.