Safeguarding a sanctuary
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-16/ ... /102291152
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Its sparkling turquoise waters and whale sharks are well known to many, but this World Heritage treasure extends to the land, too - and conservationists fear its future is on a knife’s edge.
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And the following happens in the same place:
Ningaloo whale sharks found to stop swimming to have parasites plucked by researchers
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-16/ ... /102348656
Marine scientists have formed a symbiotic relationship with whale sharks in the Ningaloo area in Western Australia as they exchange parasite removal for research data.
Usually remoras, otherwise known as suckerfish, would take care of parasitic crustaceans on whale sharks, but they can only do it for flat surfaces as opposed the mouth and leading edge of a shark's fins.
But researchers have found that some whale sharks will stop swimming and allow them to scrape copepods from tricky to clean areas like the lips with plastic knives.
A new paper from the University of Western Australia and published in the international journal Fishes suggests researchers could find out the same information about what the sharks eat from the copepod samples as they would from the more invasive process of taking pieces of skin.
Like 'the biggest cleaner fish'
The relationship between man and world's largest fish did not happen overnight at Ningaloo.
They may look slow in the water but it takes a lot of effort to keep up with the whale sharks, let alone get up to its head and start to collect copepods while holding your breath.
Dr Meekan and others have been collecting copepods from whale sharks for about 10 years, but it was only more recently some would stop for a cleaning.
"As it turns out the whale sharks actually don't mind the procedure at all," he said.
"In fact, some of them even slow down and stop and will actually let me get up the front of them and scrape lots of parasites off.
"I think that whale sharks probably look at me and go 'what on earth is that inelegant, poorly swimming thing', and when I start scraping the copepods off the lips, like, 'oh my god, it's the biggest cleaner fish I've ever seen'."
- Mark Meekan scratches a whale shark's mouth to take parasites for sampling.(Supplied: Violeta J Brosig, Blue Media Exmouth)
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