Awe for magnificent whale sharks shines through on Australia's Ningaloo Reef

An experience with whale sharks on Ningaloo Reef is precious, undoubtedly, and it may well be a tick on a bucket list for many — but awe for these magnificent creatures is what really shines, whether you get to ‘swim’ with them or not

Traveller swimming with a whale shark along Ningaloo Reef wx070625 credit: Ningaloo Discovery Tours

They're notoriously secretive, so much so that, to this day, scientists aren’t entirely sure how or when they mate and reproduce. 

They tend to be solitary, but if you were lucky enough to chance upon a group of them, they’d be called ‘a constellation’, surely the loveliest collective noun ever devised. And they’ve been listed as ‘endangered’ under the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List since 2016.