Roosts in crevices, cliffs and buildings (Harrison and Bates 1991). The colony on Qarn Nazwa roosts in rock crevices. Migrants from farther north in the Gulf have been recorded on Das Island.

Usually found in deep offshore waters (Hammond et al. 2012b).

Spinner Dolphins live well offshore in deep water, where they feed on small fish. Spinner Dolphins occur both in the open ocean and in inshore waters associated with islands or banks (Braulik and Reeves 2018).

The species is found in deep offshore waters but are seen close to shore where deep water approaches the coast, as found off the east coast of the UAE.

Occurs in offshore waters where it hunts in the thermocline for small pelagic fish. Found in groups from 10 to 300 (Baldwin et al. 1999).

Roosts in caves and rock crevices.

Whale Sharks are found in both coastal and oceanic habitats (Rowat and Brooks 2012). This species is highly mobile, with mean daily movement rates of 24-“28 km based on tethered geopositioning tags (Hueter et al. 2013). Whale Sharks spend the majority of time in the epipelagic zone, but dive to at least 1,928 m in depth (Tyminsky et al. 2015). Most sightings occur at a small number of known coastal feeding areas for the species, where the sharks aggregate on the surface to exploit seasonal productivity such as fish spawning events or zooplankton blooms (Rowat and Brooks 2012, Robinson et al. 2013). A degree of inter-annual site fidelity has been documented in many locations (Cagua et al. 2015, Norman et al. in press). Sexual- and size-based segregation is typical in these locations, with a bias towards juvenile males from 4-“8 m total length (TL) (Rohner et al. 2015, Norman et al. 2017, Robinson et al. 2016). The largest recorded Whale Sharks are approximately 20 m TL (Chen et al. 1997) and 42 t in mass (Hsu et al. 2014) as reported from Taiwan. An individual extrapolated to be 18.8 m TL was caught in India (Borrell et al. 2011). Estimates of TL at maturity for males vary between 7-9.2 m TL (Norman and Stevens 2007, Ramírez-Macías et al. 2012, Rohner et al. 2015). Size at maturity in females is approximately 9 m TL, based on visual and laser photogrammetric estimates (Acuña-Marrero et al. 2014, Ramírez-Macías et al. 2012). Whale Shark reproductive ecology is poorly known. Pregnant female sharks are seasonally found in the Eastern Pacific, particularly off Darwin Island in the Galapagos Archipelago (Acuña-Marrero et al. 2014) and the Gulf of California (Eckert and Stewart 2001, Ramírez-Macías et al. 2012), but rarely sighted outside this region. The single pregnant female that has been physically examined, from Taiwan, had 304 pups in various stages of development, establishing that this species is lecithotrophic viviparous (Joung et al. 1996, Schmidt et al. 2010). The largest size class of embryos, 58-“64 cm TL, appeared close to fully developed (Joung et al. 1996). Size at birth is presumed to be around that size although a 46 cm TL specimen was the smallest free-swimming neonate found in the Philippines (Aca and Schmidt 2011). Age and growth data on Whale Sharks are sparse. Based on biannual band-pairs, it is estimated that that male sharks begin maturing at ~17 years and females at 19-“22 years in the Indo-Pacific with generation length estimated at 25 years (Hsu et al. 2014).

Found in deep water on continental shelves where it feeds on fish species such as tuna. Observed in groups of 1-“300 (Baldwin et al. 1999).

Roosts colonially. Observed packed together in cracks between coral blocks used to build houses in Sharjah and also in falaj tunnels at Al Ain (Harrison and Bates 1991), and may make use of caves and crevices in between rocks. It occurs in a wide range of desert habitats and mountain wadis.

All UAE records are from mountains and wadis in the Hajar range.