The whale shark is the largest of living fish, averaging some 25 feet [7.5 m] in length. However, some can reach nearly twice that size. Its mouth can be up to four feet [1.4 m] wide, easily capable of swallowing a man. But far from being a ferocious predator of other large sea creatures, this gentle giant feeds on tiny plankton and small fish.

“The whale shark’s unusual digestive anatomy,” reported National Geographic magazine, “lends itself to Jonah stories,” referring to the Biblical incident about the prophet Jonah being swallowed by a great fish. Whale sharks have “a nonviolent way of getting rid of large objects of dubious digestibility they swallow accidentally.”​—Jonah 1:17; 2:10.

[Picture on page 16]

Whale shark