Up to 20 meters long and weighing as much as 20 tons, its enormous size gives the whale shark its name. Listed as a rare species, relatively little is known about whale sharks. However, a new study combines computer-assisted photographic identification with ecotourism to study the rare species and suggests whale shark populations in Ningaloo, Western Australia are healthy. The study appears in the Ecological Society of America's January issue of Ecological Applications.
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