How and what do whales eat?

After the extinction of the dinosaurs, there were not so many animals left on Earth that could compete with them in size. On land there are none at all, but in the seas this claim is claimed by whales.

By the way, why are they so big? What do the whales eat, that as a result grow to this size? We think that if you did not sleep in biology lessons, you yourself can perfectly answer this question. However, nothing prevents you from refreshing your knowledge in this area.

Strange as it may seem, these giants eat quite the wrong food that one would think about, looking at the size of their bodies and monstrous jaws. They practically do not eat fish, if we do not take into account the small thing that comes to them accidentally. So what do whales eat?

On the importance of krill in the diet of marine giants

If you again have at least a little knowledge of school biology, you may know that the main part of the biomass of the ocean is phyto- and zooplankton. It is a mixture of the smallest organisms, which in general can not be compared with the size of the whales themselves. As a rule, these are small crustaceans and unicellular algae, the calorie content of which is quite small.

Having dealt with what the whales eat, it is necessary to talk about the mechanism of this process. For once, but everyone has heard of such a concept as whalebone. What kind of a mustache is that? After all, no one has ever seen a magnificent mustache grow on the muzzle of the same blue whale , like an English gentleman!

Why do we need a whalebone?

The thing is that the so-called special plates in the digestive system of whales. Together they form a sort of gigantic sieve through which these industrious mammals filter out billions of tons of sea water, gathering food for their huge body.

By the way, if you see something like "what feeds a whale, 5 letters" in a crossword puzzle, then you can write the word "krill" boldly, as it is the totality of those organisms that are the subsistence of this marine animal.

But far from all of these mammals give their preference to some crustaceans! It's about sperm whales, the feed of which is sometimes so great that it poses a danger even to the predator itself ...

What do sperm whales eat?

This aggressive food is giant squid, living at depths of over a kilometer. Some sources say that sperm whales in search of their prey can dive to a depth of almost two kilometers, but still respected experts believe that the maximum depth of their diving does not exceed 1.2 km. Not always the food of the whale is something very small.

What does the whale eat at infancy?

Now, about what the young eat. If you carefully read our article, you could not help noticing the fact that we have repeatedly mentioned the belonging of whales to mammals. Simply put, the cubs of these animals are literally on breastfeeding, growing by several tens of centimeters per day. This amazing fact is caused by the fact that whale milk is simply amazing fat.

So we figured out what the whales feed on and how it all happens. As you can see, nature is full of all kinds of amazing and unique things!