World’s Biggest Whales Eat Three Times More Food Than Scientists Thought
November 3rd, 2021
A blue whale can grow to weigh 150 tons, nearly as heavy as 14 school buses. You don’t get that big without gobbling up — and pooping out — a whole lot of stuff. As whales eat and excrete, they keep essential nutrients cycling through the top levels of ocean water, where they help power blooms of phytoplankton, microscopic organisms that absorb carbon and are the foundation of the marine food web.
Now, new research published in Nature reveals that baleen whales, the group of giant marine mammals including blue, fin and humpback whales, eat an average of three times more food per day than previously estimated. By eating more food, baleen whales play an even larger role in bolstering nutrient circulation and carbon uptake in the ocean.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs...tists-thought/
