Every whale shark GSD's citizen-science divers help identify and tag gets a name, and 2024 added five: Elise, Luna, Makeba, Olivia and Star.
All five were first tagged during a June 2024 research expedition to the northern islands. Each is now tracked using photo-identification and satellite-tag data logged in the international Wildbook/SharkBook whale-shark database, alongside the wider dataset the Galápagos Whale Shark Project maintains.
Individual sharks are told apart the same way researchers everywhere do it: by their permanent markings. Elise carries a large notch in her dorsal fin and is missing the tip of her left pectoral fin — and she has since been tracked roughly 5,000 kilometers out into the Pacific. Luna has notches on her anal and caudal fins plus shark bites on a pelvic fin. Makeba's dorsal fin shows an old propeller-strike injury. Olivia has a small dorsal notch and a distinctive white spot on a pelvic fin. Star, by contrast, has no scarring at all — a smooth body that made her easy for participating divers to recognize and name quickly.
The naming itself is done by the citizen-science divers who spot and photograph each shark, not by GSD staff or researchers — which is the whole point of the program: an ordinary diver's photograph can become a permanent research record.
Source: adapted from Galápagos Shark Diving's own published 2024 named-whale-shark records.