The whale shark is the largest shark. Sharks are all fish, so the whale shark is also a fish. Mammals and fish are two completely different creatures, and there is no intersection between them. Therefore, whale sharks are not mammals. Some readers may mistake the whale shark for a whale, which is a mammal, and the whale shark for a mammal. This misunderstanding must be avoided.
As a fish, whale sharks have some characteristics that are very different from those of mammals. For example, the way of breathing, mammals generally breathe with lungs, terrestrial mammals naturally breathe with lungs, even mammals living in the ocean, such as whales, also breathe with lungs. Whale sharks, on the other hand, breathe with their gills, and they generally have gill slits on their bodies, through which they can exchange gas inside and outside their bodies. Moreover, whale sharks and mammals have different reproductive methods, mammals use viviparous reproduction, whale sharks are different.
As mentioned above, the whale shark is a fish, not a mammal, so the reproductive mode is different. Mammals reproduce viviparously, but whale sharks do not. Different biologists have different opinions about the way whale sharks reproduce. Some biologists believe that whale sharks, like most fish, reproduce by laying eggs, because they have found the egg shells of whale shark pups. Some biologists believe that whale sharks reproduce by ovoviviparous reproduction. In this way, although the cubs are produced directly, they are different from viviparity, because the mother and the cubs do not have nutritional instructors.
