Proceedings of 

 the United States 

 National Museum 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION • WASHINGTON, D.C. 



Volume 115 1964 Number 3476 



ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE MORPHOLOGY 

 OF AN EMBRYO WHALE SHARK 



By J. A. F. Garrick^ 



An embryo whale shark, Rhincodon typus Smith, kindly loaned 

 by the Marine Laboratory, Texas Game and Fish Commission, Rock- 

 port, shows several notable differences in proportional dimensions 

 and other features as compared with accounts of adult specimens. 

 To describe these differences is the purpose of this paper. 



The embryo, 350 mm. in total length, is one that has been removed 

 from an egg-case trawled from 31 fathoms in the Gulf of Mexico 

 about 130 miles south of Port Isabel, Texas, on June 29, 1953. This 

 specimen, believed to be the only embryo whale shark available, 

 has been reported previously by Breuer (1954), Baughman (1955), 

 and Reid (1957), who published dimensions of it and discussed its 

 trunk ridges and oronasal groove. Reid also presented a figure of 

 the underside of the head, while Breuer's and Baughman's accounts 

 each included a photograph of the specimen and its egg-case. To 

 supplement these abeady published figures, I submit here five addi- 

 tional illustrations of the embryo whale shai'k and its dermal denticles. 

 For these drawings I am greatly indebted to the skill of Mrs. Fanuy 

 PhiUips. 



' Division of Fishes, U.S. National Museum. This research was supported by contracts between the 

 Smithsonian Institution and the Atomic Energy Commission (A EC (30-1) 2409) and the Office of Naval 

 Research (NONR 1354 (09)). 



