Ambergris is sperm whale vomit used in perfumes.
Posted on 11/16/2008 9:51:10 PM PST by nickcarraway
Whale sharks are elusive creatures hidden in our vast oceans, so you can imagine how excited a scientist was when he saw one doing a poo. Catching the excrement of the world's biggest fish was 'scientific gold', said Dr Mark Meekan, because it holds many clues to its feeding habits.
The messy moment, caught on camera for the first time, has already revealed the filter-feeders visit Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean to feast on its brief but vast red crab migration.
But little else is known about them, hence Dr Meekan's year-long quest to find out more.
As well as following them around with a plastic bag, the researcher tagged six young male whale sharks and tracked them via satellite.
It showed the creatures travelling hundreds of kilometres each month – and also demonstrated not bad at shaking off a tail.
At one point, Dr Meekan tracked one discarded tag via Google Earth to the hut of a fisherman in West Timor.
'We really needed to get the GPS tracker back. It held valuable information on where the shark had been,' he said.
'By cross-referencing its signal with Google Earth, I was able to give the search team really detailed instructions, like “turn right after the football pitch”.
'The fisherman was a bit surprised when one of my PhD students turned up but we got the tag back.'
Whale sharks are found in warm seas and grow to about twice the size of a great white shark but are listed as vulnerable to extinction because of fishing.
Follow Dr Meekan's exploits tomorrow night at 8pm on BBC2.
What a sh*tty job.
Thar she poos!
So, this guy likes being lower than whale sh*t, I guess. Cabinet post on the Obama bandwagon in his future???
Just an idle thought...
“Whale sharks are elusive creatures hidden in our vast oceans”
Try the Gulf of California, there are lots of them there.
It’s kind of spooky when one of those 20 ton monsters crosses 10’ uder your boat when you are trolling for marlin.
The 12 year old in me is giggling at the way this was written.
I wonder what that Scientist’s fetish is...
DOAPOO.COM is already taken.
They used a British idiom, and it is odd for U.S. ears.
Anyone know where I can get a pooper scooper THIS BIG??
Excited by poo? This guy would have an orgasm if he saw Congress at work!
Biggest fish? A whale is a mammal, not a fish.
A Whale Fish is a shark (hence a fish), not a whale, despite the name.
OK, thanks for the correction. I saw the headline and skimmed over the shark part when I read the article. I was wondering why no one had observed a whale pooping until now. But this is not about whales but rather a very large shark.
I think headline writers have to go to idiot school.
Ambergris is sperm whale vomit used in perfumes.
This headline does substantiate the theory that today’s news writers have not finished junior high school.
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