Researcher Jorge Fontes from the Okeanos Institute at the University of the Azores recently won an international award for a photo taken in 2021 off the coast of Santa Maria Island in the Azores, featuring a whale shark.
The image, which won the overall BMC Ecology and Evolution prize, shows the world’s largest fish feeding with schools of different fish surrounding it.
Speaking to RTP-Açores, the specialist, who goes by ‘Fontes_ecodive’ on Instagram, explained that the photograph represents “a kind of organized chaos, with hundreds of large tuna fish ferociously attacking a bait ball, and in the background, an enormous whale shark enters, taking advantage of this feeding frenzy.”
It’s worth noting that Jorge Fontes recently discussed the alleged increase of sharks in the Azores archipelago in an interview.
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