The origin of whale shark spot pattern identification |
Written by Isabelle Foisy |
Thursday, 20 November 2008 07:35 |
November 15, 2008 Is it raining yet?Are you one of the courageous ones who chose to stand by until better weather, on our little rock? If so, well done. If not, can’t blame you. Boats have had a hard time getting out of the harbour to keep divers going out to play, so there has been only one encounter reported to us in the last month. Let’s hope for fairer skies and calmer seas in the one to come. Sharks by numbersAny guess on just how many Honduran whale sharks have been identified in the Ecocean Photo-ID Library? In the beginningOn December 17, 2004 in a country not-so-far-away, H-001 was created (H for Honduras). The Hubble Telescope?Astronomers devised a technique to match star patterns, but it works for whale sharks too. It’s all about white dots on a dark background. We need that little area behind the gills. We highlight each spots and it’s actually the angles between all those spots that we use. We triangulate. As the shark grows, the spots will move also but the angle between each spot doesn’t change.If you or any of your divers get a photo of a whale shark, please do not hesitate to send it to
Thanks for playing, |