🦈 🧠 THE BRAIN is the most complex part of any animal's body, and it comes in all manner of shapes and sizes; the same is true for the whale shark. Here's a quick overview on a recent whale shark brain study: . 🧠 Compared with other shark species, the brains of whale sharks were smaller than expected given their body size. The same is true for great white sharks, basking sharks, and sand tiger sharks. . 🧠 It has been suggested that large brains are correlated with increasing cognitive demands that a species might face. Therefore, it is possible that the relatively smaller brains of the plankton predators are potentially related to their opportunistic passive predation strategies, which is likely less cognitively demanding than more active hunting behaviours. . 🧠 Saying that, the whale shark travels extremely long distances, and is also known to migrate vertically within the water column and suspend itself vertically to feed, a maneuver that requires a high level of coordination. The anatomy of the cerebellum, then, has less to do with hunting, and more to do with motor coordination requirements. . 🧠 While the whale shark's brain is small, the cerebellum (the part associated with motor function and high level coordination) was large and highly foliated compared with other shark species. Scans of a neonate (very young) whale shark found that the brain corpus foliation appeared at an early age. . 📷 @sujugasim 📝 paper by Yopak K.E & Frank L.R . #whaleshark #shark #sharks #sharkscience #wildlife #animals #ocean #charity #nonprofit #uwphotography #marineconservation #freediver #scuba #diving #conservation #sea #maldives #maldivesislands #liveaboard #explore #sustainable #photography #southariatoll #travelphotography #sharkphotography #marinebiology