Discovery log

1828

The first scientific description of the whale shark

In April 1828, a 4.6-metre specimen was harpooned in Table Bay, South Africa. Andrew Smith, a military doctor then stationed at the Cape, studied it and described it the following year: the first scientific description of the whale shark, the largest living fish known today. The holotype from this original description is now held at the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

• 🌊Atlantic Ocean
• ↓Epipelagic zone
• ↓Mesopelagic zone
• ↓Bathypelagic zone