At night, aboard a traditional wooden fishing vessel, a column of green-white light shot into the black sea below.

The fishers aboard were doing routine work: raising and lowering a wide lift net, checking the ropes that held it suspended and tending a series of lamps that draw small baitfish beneath the platform.

But as the crew began to lift the net, something unusual surfaced in the glow: a pale, spotted shape drifting just above the mesh. It was a whale shark — an endangered species — but by far the smallest one they had ever seen in Saleh Bay, Indonesia.

Video of the first baby whale shark discovered in Indonesia:

At just 1.3 to 1.5 meters long, the animal fell squarely within the size class of a neonate, a baby only a few months old. Until now, every whale shark documented in Indonesia had been a juvenile at least twice that size.…