What is "whale shark"

Liver \Liv"er\, n. [AS. lifer; akin to D. liver, G. leber, OHG. lebara, Icel. lifr, Sw. lefver, and perh. to Gr. ? fat, E. live, v.] (Anat.) A very large glandular and vascular organ in the visceral cavity of all vertebrates.

Note: Most of the venous blood from the alimentary canal passes through it on its way back to the heart; and it secretes the bile, produces glycogen, and in other ways changes the blood which passes through it. In man it is situated immediately beneath the diaphragm and mainly on the right side. See Bile, Digestive, and Glycogen. The liver of invertebrate animals is usually made up of c[ae]cal tubes, and differs materially, in form and function, from that of vertebrates.

Floating liver. See Wandering liver, under Wandering.

Liver of antimony, Liver of sulphur. (Old Chem.) See Hepar.

Liver brown, Liver color, the color of liver, a dark, reddish brown.

Liver shark (Zo["o]l.), a very large shark ( Cetorhinus maximus), inhabiting the northern coasts both of Europe and North America. It sometimes becomes forty feet in length, being one of the largest sharks known; but it has small simple teeth, and is not dangerous. It is captured for the sake of its liver, which often yields several barrels of oil. It has gill rakers, resembling whalebone, by means of which it separates small animals from the sea water. Called also basking shark, bone shark, hoemother, homer, and sailfish; it is sometimes referred to as whale shark, but that name is more commonly used for the Rhincodon typus, which grows even larger.

Liver spots, yellowish brown patches on the skin, or spots of chloasma.

n. A very large spotted shark, ''Rhincodon typus'', of warm marine waters, similar to a whale, that feeds by filtering plankton from the water.

n. large spotted shark of warm surface waters worldwide; resembles a whale and feeds chiefly on plankton [syn: Rhincodon typus]

The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is a slow-moving filter feeding shark and the largest known extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of and a weight of about . Unconfirmed claims of considerably larger individuals, over long and weighing at least , are not uncommon. The whale shark holds many records for sheer size in the animal kingdom, most notably being by far the largest living nonmammalian vertebrate. It is the sole member of the genus Rhincodon and the only extant member of the family, Rhincodontidae (called Rhiniodon and Rhinodontidae before 1984), which belongs to the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. The species originated about 60 million years ago.

The whale shark is found in open waters of the tropical oceans and is rarely found in water below . Modeling suggests a lifespan of about 70 years, but measurements have proven difficult. They have very large mouths and are filter feeders, which is a feeding mode that occurs in only two other sharks, the megamouth shark and the basking shark. They feed almost exclusively on plankton and, therefore, are completely harmless to humans.

The species was distinguished in April 1828 after the harpooning of a specimen in Table Bay, South Africa. Andrew Smith, a military doctor associated with British troops stationed in Cape Town, described it the following year. The name "whale shark" directly refers to the fish's size, being as large as some species of whales and also that it is a filter feeder like baleen whales.