Chandbali: A group of fishermen in Chandbali area under Dhamara fishing harbour of Bhadrak district sold a whale shark at a whopping Rs 7.49 lakh Wednesday. The fishermen ventured into deep sea and returned with the aquatic animal weighing over a quintal.
As per reports, the expensive variety of the marine fish is found mostly in Indian and Pacific Ocean along the coast of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.
Sources said the fish was sold to a Chennai-based businessman at a huge amount of ` 7.49 lakh. The unusual spectacle has been recorded in a mobile camera and the video of the same is doing rounds on the internet.
The whale shark is a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known extant fish species. Its weight is over 1 quintal. The whale shark holds many records for size in the animal kingdom, most notably being by far the largest living non-mammalian vertebrate.
The whale shark, or Rhincodon typus, is found in warm, tropical waters and has an estimated lifespan of 75 years. The whale shark is the world’s largest fish, and is relatively docile. It has a wide mouth with some 300 to 350 rows of tiny teeth that filter plankton, which consists of small creatures and plants. However, the forest department has no information regarding the selling of the shark.