The whale shark is bigger. It is the largest fish in the world, with typical adults of 18 to 33 feet (5.5 to 10 meters) and a few reported at around 60 feet, while orcas top out at about 32 feet and 11 tons. The two animals live very differently: the whale shark is a gentle, plankton-eating fish of warm seas, and the orca is a warm-blooded dolphin that hunts fish, seals, and other marine mammals. Orcas can and do kill young whale sharks, though only a handful of cases have been recorded.
Key Differences Between Whale Sharks and Orcas
| Feature | Whale Shark | Orca |
|---|---|---|
| Type of animal | Fish (a shark) that breathes with gills | Mammal, the largest member of the dolphin family, that breathes air |
| Length | Commonly 18 to 33 feet; the largest reported is about 62 feet | Up to 32 feet |
| Weight | Estimated at about 20 tons (41,000 pounds) for the largest; hard to measure | Up to 11 tons |
| Lifespan | Ages up to 50 years estimated from vertebrae; true lifespan unknown | Males about 30 years on average, up to 60 or more; females about 50 on average, up to 90 or more |
| Diet | Plankton, krill, fish eggs, small fish and squid | Fish, squid, seals, sharks, and other marine mammals, depending on the population |
| Habitat | Tropical and warm temperate seas | All oceans, from the tropics to polar waters |
| Young | Hatch inside the mother; one female held about 300 embryos | One calf after 15 to 18 months |
| Conservation | Endangered (IUCN, 2016) | About 50,000 worldwide; Southern Resident population endangered under the US Endangered Species Act |
Physical Characteristics
Size and Weight
Georgia Aquarium gives a common whale shark length of 18 to 32.8 feet (5.5 to 10 meters) and lists the largest measured individual at 61.7 feet (18.8 meters). Researchers who aged whale shark vertebrae in 2020 sampled sharks up to about 33 feet (10 meters). That paper also cites a wild record of about 20 meters from Taiwan in 1987, so treat the largest sizes as rare and hard to verify. Accurate weights are also difficult to get. The figure of about 41,000 pounds (roughly 20 tons) is an estimate, not a scale measurement.
NOAA lists orcas at up to 32 feet and up to 11 tons. The size ranges overlap: a big male orca can match a medium-sized whale shark in length, but the largest whale sharks are far longer.
Distinguishing Features
A whale shark has a very wide mouth at the front of its head and a dark body marked with a checkerboard of light spots and bars. Each shark has its own pattern. According to the Florida Museum, it has no functional teeth and instead filters food through 20 pads in its throat.
An orca has black-and-white coloring, a tall dorsal fin, and conical teeth for gripping prey.
Behavior and Diet
Orcas
Orcas live in pods, which are groups of maternally related animals. NOAA describes pods ranging from a few animals to 20 or more. What orcas eat depends on the population. Resident orcas eat mainly fish, primarily salmon. Transient orcas hunt mostly marine mammals and squid, and offshore orcas eat fish, including sharks.
Orcas can overpower large sharks. In South Africa, orcas have killed great white sharks and removed their livers, according to Towner and colleagues. Near the Farallon Islands in California, tagged white sharks left in each of four documented orca encounters and did not return until the next season.
Whale Sharks
Whale sharks are usually found alone, though they gather where food is plentiful. They filter zooplankton, including krill, copepods, fish eggs, and coral spawn, out of the water, along with small fish such as sardines and anchovies. As filter feeders, they are not considered a threat to people.
Habitat and Range
Whale sharks live in tropical and warm temperate seas worldwide except the Mediterranean, and prefer surface water of about 70 to 86 °F (21 to 30 °C). They mostly stay in open water but sometimes enter lagoons and coral atolls. They can dive to about 6,300 feet (1,900 meters).
Orcas are found in every ocean, from polar waters to the tropics.
Reproduction
Whale sharks are live-bearing. The eggs hatch inside the mother, and the young are born fully formed. In 1995, researchers removed about 300 embryos from one 11-meter female caught off eastern Taiwan. Newborns are estimated at 55 to 64 centimeters long. Scientists do not know where whale sharks mate or give birth, and most sharks seen in aggregations are young males.
Orcas give birth to one calf after a 15 to 18 month pregnancy. Calves nurse for at least a year and stay near their mothers for at least the first two years.
Do Orcas Eat Whale Sharks?
Yes, but it is rarely seen. A 2024 study in Frontiers in Marine Science described four orca attacks on whale sharks in the southern Gulf of California between 2018 and 2024. All the whale sharks were juveniles of about 16 to 20 feet (5 to 6 meters). The orcas rammed the sharks at speed, flipped them upside down, and bit the pelvic area so the sharks bled out. An adult male orca nicknamed Moctezuma took part in three of the four attacks, which led the authors to suggest that a specialized group of shark-hunting orcas may live in the Gulf.
Orcas were seen with shark meat in their mouths in only one of the four events, and the authors did not see the liver being eaten, although they think it is the target. They also cite two earlier reports: a brief, anecdotal one from 2000, and a 2023 case in the Mexican Pacific in which two orcas struck a whale shark until it died and was consumed. So far, this behavior has been documented only in that part of the world.
Orcas are not the only predators. At Ningaloo Reef, great white and tiger sharks have attacked whale sharks, and a juvenile has been found in the stomach of a blue shark.
Conservation
Whale sharks are listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, a status they have held since 2016, when they were moved up from Vulnerable. They are also listed in Appendix II of CITES and CMS, according to Georgia Aquarium. PBS Nature names unregulated fisheries as the main threat.
Orcas are not a single conservation category. NOAA estimates about 50,000 orcas worldwide, but some populations are in trouble. The Southern Residents, which feed mostly on Chinook salmon, were listed as endangered under the US Endangered Species Act in 2005. NOAA's July 2025 census counted only 74 whales.
For more detail, see the species profiles for the whale shark and the orca, or read how the whale shark compares with the blue whale.
Sources
- Whale shark species profile (Florida Museum)
- Whale shark (Georgia Aquarium)
- Killer whale species profile (NOAA Fisheries)
- Killer whale predation events on whale sharks in the Gulf of California (Pancaldi et al., Frontiers in Marine Science, 2024)
- Annual bands in vertebrae validated by bomb radiocarbon assays provide estimates of age and growth of whale sharks (Frontiers in Marine Science, 2020)