When thinking about swimming with a whale shark for the first time, a lot of people have the same questions: can I be eaten by one? Is swimming with whale sharks dangerous? The answer is yes! They are totally safe to swim with, their calm nature makes them one of the most pleasant animals to encounter with.
Am I Safe While Swimming With Whale Sharks?
Given that whale sharks may grow up to 10 meters in length, many people are curious if swimming with whale sharks is dangerous, but these enormous sea creatures are really just friendly whale sharks. They are docile and most importantly, they don’t even eat with their teeth.
Whale shark diet. Scientists refer to the whale shark as filter feeders, which means that they enjoy munching on plankton and krill, among the tiniest marine animals. Their eating process is that they take a huge gulp of water and then filter it out with their gill rakers, making all the minuscule plankton, krill, jellyfish, and fish pass through their tiny throats and be digested and they don’t eat anything larger than small fish and will vomit out any unfamiliar thing.
When they eat, they actually gulp their food instead of biting and they have very tiny little teeth almost the size of a pill that they don’t even use, even scientists are unsure what they are for. Lots of people are afraid that their mouth is broad enough to swallow a human, sure, but you’ll be glad to hear that they actually try to avoid us because we smell awful to them, more specifically all our lotions and creams, so they will swim far from us, which is why when swimming with them, all companies will kindly ask you to use only eco-friendly and odor free products, so they can stay around longer.
Basically, you’re totally safe to swim with them, actually, speaking of swimming, we have a great Cancun whale shark snorkeling tour, where you’ll be able to swim with tons of these friendly giants and other sea animals like dolphins and turtles!
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