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, whales claim this title.
By the way, why are they so big? What do whales eat, which as a result grow to such a size? We think that if you did not sleep in biology lessons, then you yourself can perfectly answer this question. However, nothing prevents you from refreshing your knowledge in this area.
Oddly enough, these giants do not eat the kind of food that one might think of, looking at the size of their body and monstrous mouth. They practically do not eat fish, if you do not take into account a trifle that comes across to them by chance. So what do whales eat?
On the importance of krill in the diet of sea giants
If, again, you are at least a little versed in school biology, you may know that phyto- and zooplankton make up the bulk of the biomass of the ocean. This is a mixture of the smallest organisms, which are generally in no way comparable to the dimensions of the whales themselves. As a rule, these are small crustaceans and the calorie content of which is quite low.
Having dealt with what whales eat, it is necessary to talk about the mechanism of this process. At least once, but every person has heard of such a thing as a whalebone. What kind of mustache is this? After all, no one has ever seen a luxurious mustache grow on the muzzle of the same, like some English gentleman!
What is whalebone for?
The thing is that this is the name of special plates in the digestive system of whales. Together they form a kind of giant sieve through which these industrious mammals filter out billions of tons of sea water, collecting food for their huge body.
By the way, if in a crossword puzzle you see something like “what a whale eats, 5 letters”, then you can safely write the word “krill”, since it is they who designate the totality of those organisms that are the food of this
But not all of these mammals give their preference to some crustaceans! We are talking about sperm whales, whose food is sometimes so great that it is dangerous even for the predator itself ...
What do sperm whales eat?
This aggressive food is living at depths of more than a kilometer. Some sources claim that sperm whales in search of their prey can dive to a depth of almost two kilometers, but still, authoritative experts believe that the maximum depth of their dives still does not exceed 1.2 km. Far from always, whale food is something very small.
What does a whale eat as a baby?
Now about what the cubs eat. If you carefully read our article, you could not help but notice the fact that we have repeatedly mentioned that whales belong to mammals. Simply put, the cubs of these animals are literally breastfed, growing by several tens of centimeters per day. This amazing fact is caused by the fact that whale milk is simply amazingly fat.
So we figured out what whales eat and how it all happens. As you can see, nature is full of all sorts of amazing and peculiar things!
Different representatives of the order of cetaceans have their own preferences and specializations in the diet. According to the types of main food, whales are divided into four groups:
- planktophages - animals mainly feeding on plankton (small crustaceans);
- teutophages - individuals of cetaceans whose diet is based on cephalopods of various sizes;
- ichthyophages are whales that feed mainly on fish of various species;
- sacrophages are representatives of the order of cetaceans, which are a kind of vegetarians, the basis of their diet is algae.
Individuals of the order of cetaceans consume food whole, without chewing, its daily requirement can reach a ton or more.
For different whales, the prey used for food can be both piece and mass. The pharynx of baleen whales is rather narrow, only plankton or small fish can pass through it, therefore these animals, the so-called "filterers", get food at the same time in significant quantities. To do this, a huge mammal wedges itself into a plankton colony - krill - and, opening its gigantic mouth, sucks in water along with crustaceans (plankton). With its very large tongue, having previously closed its mouth, the whale squeezes water through the whalebone. The water leaves, but the food remains. Such an operation, during the day, animals carry out repeatedly.
Toothed whales, the so-called "grabbers", get food by grabbing prey one by one, and hold it with their teeth or suck it in using their tongue. The basis of the diet of toothed whales is cephalopods and various types of fish. The sperm whale belonging to this group of whales has a pharynx of considerable size and could even swallow a person. This mammal, as a rule, obtains food at a considerable depth - more than one and a half kilometers - and squids form the basis of its diet. The only representatives of the order of cetaceans that constantly feed not only on cold-blooded, but also on warm-blooded animals, such as seals, birds and whales, are killer whales.
By the way, do you know
Cetaceans are the largest animals among all living on our planet: for example, adult blue whales have a body length of over twenty meters. The record holder among blue whales had this figure equal to thirty-three meters. The weight of an adult blue whale varies from ninety to one hundred and twenty tons.
In the waters of the icy Arctic seas, there are real sea unicorns - narwhals. However, the “horn” of the narwhal is not a horn at all, but the front left tooth, which in the process of evolution turned into a finely twisted tusk. Only male narwhals have such a “horn”.
See page: photos of whales.
plankton
baleen whale diet
Alternative descriptions
Countless aquatic life
Small organisms living in the water column (protozoa, algae, larvae, crustaceans, etc.)
The totality of animal and plant organisms that live in the water column and are carried by the force of the current
The totality of organisms that inhabit the water column and are carried by water currents
whale food
radiolarians
This product, which the Kon-Tiki team was supplied by the ocean, to Tur Heyerdahl tasted like lobster pate, and sometimes - caviar or oysters
Office "animals"
whale lunch
whale food
whale food
whale food
Countless marine life
Countless marine life
What does the sperm whale eat?
The diet of mustachioed cues
whale food
Dish to the table of a baleen whale
Baleen whale meal
The totality of animal and plant organisms living in the water column and carried by the gravity of the current
The totality of organisms that live in the water column and are passively carried by the water current
Whales are the largest (the weight of an adult can exceed 150 tons), the longest (approximately 30-35 meters in length).
Photos of whales can not leave anyone indifferent.
baby whales
The tongue of a blue whale weighs 4 tons. That's about as much. how much does an elephant weigh. For example: if people want to climb this tongue, then at the same time 50 of them will satisfy their desire.
Already in ancient times it was known that these are mammals. They are warm-blooded and breathe air. These heaviest mammals have, albeit very tiny, but wool. They feed their babies with milk. These are facts known to all.
Whales can go without sleep for 100 days. They can live without food for 8 months. The most hardy - up to 10 months.
Scientists believe that all cetaceans, apparently, are secondary water: their ancestors once, about 50 million years ago, left the ocean waters, but in the process of evolution returned to the abyss of the oceans.
Pregnancy in females lasts 11 months. Whale cubs are born about 8 meters long and weighing 2-3 tons.
The most interesting thing is that the whale egg is no larger than the egg of a simple field mouse.
Whale songs
For the first half year of life, the kitten feeds on mother's milk. Every day the cub consumes approximately 350-390 liters of milk. In its half-year, the miracle baby reaches a size of 15 meters and a weight of about 20-25 tons.
The blood of cetaceans absorbs more oxygen than the blood of other mammals.
The oral cavity of cetaceans is not connected to the lungs. They inhale air, rising to the surface of the ocean: their lungs are saturated with oxygen, which subsequently, under water, is saturated with moisture and heats up. At the moment when the animals emerge, they exhale and hot air, in contact with cold air, forms a magnificent fountain of condensed steam.
A whale inhales 2000 liters of air in 1 second.
The bowhead whale blows a fountain up to 6 meters high!
whales
The largest whale is blue. For some reason, on several resources on the Internet, I was “lucky” to come across the wording “blue whale”. But this is so, digression from the topic.
Interestingly, the "blue" females are larger than the males.
The heart of the blue whale is the largest heart in the world! It is comparable in size to a car, and weighs approximately 600 or 700 kg.
A whale has 8,000 liters of blood, and the vessels in diameter are about the same as the diameter of a bucket of water.
A whale can not breathe for about 2 hours and during this time cover a huge distance under water!
fin whale
"The most high-calorie" - 8 million calories per day - that's how much one whale can absorb in one day. And it feeds mainly on krill. A ton of krill per day. Plus everything and everyone who gets into the mouth along with small crustaceans (krill).
Very small, sea-adapted eyes are able to withstand high pressure when the animal dives to great depths, large oily tears are released from the tear ducts, which help to see more clearly in the water and protect the eyes from the effects of salt. Whales do not have external ears, they hear with their lower jaws. From it, the sound goes through a special cavity to the middle and inner ear. Whales constantly listen because they have no sense of smell and poorly developed eyesight. Sound enables whales to navigate, communicate with each other and eat, although the exact purpose of the sounds produced by whales has not yet been clarified. Whales suffer greatly from the noise in the oceans that people make.
Of all the mammals, only humans and whales sing songs.
The most talkative and singing whales are white. People affectionately call them "sea canaries" for their wide range of cooing and chirping sounds.
Whale songs are long and sonorous. The shortest aria lasts about 6 minutes. However, if no one interferes with singing, the whale's song can last for 30-40 minutes. Despite the fact that whales do not have vocal cords.
Quite interesting is the subspecies called the fin whale. These giants live in families of 5-8 individuals, and during the migration fin whales unite in groups of 200-250 individuals. The fin whale is perhaps the fastest of the marine mammals. The speed of its movement at the moment of danger can exceed 45 km / h. The fin whale can dive to a depth of 250 meters and stay there for 15 minutes. And fin whales can make sounds of such a low frequency that the human ear is simply not able to catch them.
The tail of a whale is as individual as a person's fingerprints. It is impossible to meet two identical tails.
Scars and grooves, cuts, spots of brown algae “draw” uniquely identifying “graffiti” on whale tails.
The blue whale weighs over 100 tons, and a truck could fit in its huge mouth! But, surprisingly, the main food of this giant is krill - small, shrimp-like marine crustaceans 1-6 cm in size. Krill form huge accumulations near the surface of the sea, and the blue whale can swallow a huge mass of these crustaceans in one fell swoop. In summer, an adult blue whale can eat 3 tons of krill per day! Over the summer, animals acquire a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, which will warm and support their body in winter, when krill becomes scarce in the seas.
Stretching, the throat folds increase the volume of the oral cavity of the minke whale during feeding.
Krill is the collective name for small marine planktonic shrimp-like crustaceans from the order Euphausiidae. Accumulations of krill reach a diameter of several kilometers of incredibly high density: in the volume of water with an ordinary bath contains about 50 thousand crustaceans!
Blue whale- the largest representative of the order of cetaceans and the entire class of mammals.
Blue whale ( Balaenoptera musculus , blue whale, blue whale) - a marine animal from the order of cetaceans, belongs to baleen whales from the minke whale genus.
The blue whale is the largest modern animal, and also probably the largest of all animals that have ever lived on Earth.
Adult lengthwhale (females are larger) can reach 24-33 meters, the weight of an adult whale is 100-120 tons,according to some reports, it can even exceed 150 tons!Weight of a newborn kitten -2-3 tons, length - 6-8 m.
The largest recorded specimen was a female killed by whalers in 1926 off the South Shetland Islands. Its length was 33.58 meters. This whale was not weighed, but it apparently weighed well over 150 tons.
There is also evidence that in 1947 a 190-ton blue whale was killed by whalers off South Georgia. Known blue whale and weighing 181 tons.
Blue whales 30 meters long have been seen repeatedly - in 1922 such a whale swam into the Panama Canal, and in 1964 a 30-meter whale weighing 135 tons was slaughtered off the Aleutian Islands by Soviet whalers.
However, in the past, determining the exact weight of blue whales was associated with significant difficulties, since whaling ships did not have the equipment capable of weighing such huge carcasses. Therefore, they were weighed in parts, and the weighing technique was finally developed only by 1926.
There is also an opinion that blue whales were crushed as a result of long-term predatory fishing, and back in the 18th century, when blue whales were much more numerous, specimens up to 37 meters in length could come across among them.
Blue whales, giants over 30 meters long, are quite rare, their average size is 22.8 m for males in the Northern Hemisphere and 23.5 m for females, in the Southern Hemisphere they are usually a meter larger.
In a blue whale, the tongue weighs 3 tons, the liver - 1 ton, the heart - 600-700 kg. The total amount of blood in a blue whale is up to 10 tons, the diameter of the dorsal artery is 40 cm, and the stomach can hold up to 2 tons of food. The blue whale's mouth is a "room with a floor area" of 24 square meters. meters, and the lungs can hold up to 14 cubic meters. meters of air.
There are three subspecies of the blue whale - northern, southern and dwarf, slightly different in size and physique. Sometimes a fourth subspecies stands out - the Indian blue whale. The first two subspecies gravitate to cold circumpolar waters, and the third is found mainly in tropical seas.
The way of life of all subspecies is almost the same. Whales keep mainly alone, less often in small groups, and even in groups they swim separately. Historically, the range of the blue whale occupied the entire world's oceans, but is now severely torn apart. The lifestyle of the blue whale is still not well understood.
The life expectancy of a blue whale is very long, and is comparable to the age of a person, according to various sources, a blue whale lives up to 80 and even up to 90 years, and the oldest known specimen was 110 years old!
However, according to some scientists, in well-studied herds of blue whales (in the Gulf of St. Lawrence), the life span of whales is at least 40 years.
Blue whale eating mainly large planktonic invertebrates, mainly crustaceans, mainly euphausiids, in the Antarctic - black-eyed (5-6 cm long), in the northern hemisphere - smaller crustaceans. A full stomach holds 1.5-2 tons of crustaceans.
Blue whales are pelagic animals, usually found in the open ocean and rarely come close to the shore.
A feeding whale swims slowly, remaining under water for 8-10 minutes. This is followed by 10-12 intermediate dives and shallow dives, each such dive takes 6-7 seconds, and a shallow dive takes 15-40 seconds, during which the whale manages to swim 40-50 meters under the very surface of the water. The highest dives in the series are the first (after ascending from the depth) and the last (before diving into the depth).
A "grazing" blue whale moves at a speed of 11-15 km / h, and a frightened one develops a speed of 33-40 km / h. But it can only move so fast for a few minutes.
The blue whale is distributed from the Chukchi Sea, Greenland, Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya to the Antarctic.
It is very rare in the tropical zone, winters only in warm waters: in the Northern Hemisphere - at the latitudes of Southern Japan, Taiwan, California, Mexico, North Africa, the Caribbean Sea; in the Southern Hemisphere - at the latitudes of Australia, Peru, Ecuador, South Africa, Madagascar.
In summer, the blue whale feeds in the waters of the Antarctic, the North Atlantic, the Bering and Chukchi Seas.
Blue whales breed every 2 years in warm waters, mostly in winter.
Pregnancy lasts about 11 months, there is one cub in the litter. Females feed the cub with milk for about 7 months, and during this period the cub grows up to 16 meters, and increases its weight to 23 tons. During the day, the whale adds 80-100 kg in weight. At a year and a half, a young whale has a length of up to 20 meters and a weight of up to 45-50 tons.
Sexual maturity occurs at 4-5 years, females at this time reach a length of 23 meters. And they reach full growth and physical maturity with a body length of 26-27 m, at 14-15 years.
The physique of the blue whale is proportional, the body is well streamlined. The dorsal fin is small, its height is only 30 cm, it is set far back. The pectoral fins are narrow, pointed and somewhat shortened (1/7-1/8 body length). The width of the caudal fin with a small notch in the middle is equal to 1/4 of the body length. The head is wide, U-shaped from above, with margins convex to the side.
In areas of mass feeding, its skin, like all minke whales, is overgrown with a green film of diatoms, which disappears in temperate and warm waters.
Whalebone- these are horn platinum and fringe, pitch black. The height does not exceed 130 cm, the width is 50-60 cm, and the number of plates is from 270 to 440 in each half of the upper jaw.
The sounds made by the blue whale are infrasounds, with a frequency below 50 Hz, mainly 8 - 20 Hz, and their intensity is rarely below 60 decibels. Blue whale “screams” are most intense at the lowest frequencies, around 1 Hz, but such calls last no more than 18 seconds.
Infrasound signals are common for communication over long distances during migrations where whales move several kilometers apart.
Studies by American specialists off the coast of Antarctica have shown that blue whales can exchange signals at a distance of up to 33 km.
The voice of the blue whale, like other large whales, is unusually loud, and on average, the voices of blue whales can have an intensity of up to 190 decibels in the subsonic range. Note that for a person in his auditory range (from 16 to 20 thousand Hz), a sound intensity of 180 decibels is already a pain threshold! The voice of the blue whale was recorded at a distance of 200 km, there is data on the audibility of the cries of blue whales at a distance of 400 and even 1600 km!
Endangered whale...
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the number of blue whales began to decline rapidly due to uncontrolled fishing. Whalers were attracted by the huge size of the carcass of this animal - from one whale you could get much more fat and meat than from any other cetacean.
By the 1960s, the blue whale was practically exterminated and was on the verge of extinction - in 1963, no more than 5,000 individuals remained.
Currently, despite the conservation measures taken, the blue whale is still very rare - the total number does not exceed 10,000 individuals, and new conservation measures are required to maintain its stable population. The main threat to whales is the anthropogenic factor, disruption of their habitual way of life and pollution of the seas.
The slow natural reproduction of blue whales also significantly hinders the growth of their population.
The initial number of blue whales, before the start of their intensive fishing, was estimated at 215,000. According to other sources, it could be even more, up to 350 thousand.
The first bans on blue whale fishing in the Northern Hemisphere date back to 1939, but they affected only certain areas.
The blue whale fishery was completely banned only in 1966, but the ban on fishing, however, did not immediately affect the “blue pygmy whales”, which continued to be caught even in the season until 1967.
The current population of blue whales is difficult to assess, for decades they have not been studied very actively, so the International Whaling Commission, since the mid-1970s, has practically not been counting the population.
In 1984, it was reported that no more than 2000 blue whales live in the Northern Hemisphere, about 10 thousand in the Southern Hemisphere, half of which are dwarf subspecies.
The growth of the blue whale population is slow, but in a number of places, for example, in areas near Iceland, the increase after the ban on fishing reached 5% per year.
American scientists who conducted a detailed study of the population of cetaceans off the Pacific coast of the United States noted that the number of blue whales in these areas tended to increase during the 1980s, however, there was no data on the growth of the population in the Pacific Ocean as a whole. There is a serious danger that the blue whale is on the verge of extinction, and that the blue whale population will never be able to recover to its original abundance.
Although the International Red Book notes that at present there is no direct threat to the blue whale population, nevertheless, long (up to 4-5 km) smooth fishing nets pose a serious danger to them, in which a significant number of marine animals die. mammals. True, fishermen claim that blue whales and fin whales easily overcome such nets, but one case of the death of a blue whale in nets still occurred in 1995.
Five blue whales have died in the Pacific Ocean from collisions with ships, and, by a strange coincidence, 4 of these 5 cases occurred in 2007. One blue whale usually dies from strikes against sea vessels per year.
Among the most well-studied group of whales living in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, about 9% of animals have scars, clearly received from collisions with ships, and according to some estimates, this figure may be as high as 25%. This is due both to the high concentration of blue whales in the area and to the extremely heavy shipping traffic. Off the coast of Western Canada, about 12% of blue whales have marks on their skin from various fishing gear.
Despite the strict protection of blue whales, even in the places of their greatest concentration there are no restrictions on navigation, but only recommendations to reduce the speed of ships, which are very rarely carried out by ship captains.
A significant threat to blue whales is pollution of the seas, including oil products. Analyzes conducted in the mid-1990s showed that blue whales' adipose tissue accumulates poisonous chemicals (polychlorinated biphenyls) that enter the sea. These substances, which accumulate in the body of pregnant females, are transferred to the cubs in the womb. Due to the small number of individual herds and inbreeding, genetic defects and degeneration can also play a negative role in reducing the population of blue whales.
The population of blue whales, according to studies by Swiss scientists, is also associated with violations of their migration routes. The noise background of the sea over the past few decades has increased so much that voice signals are often drowned out, the noises made by ships, as a rule, have the same frequency as the voices of whales, so it becomes increasingly difficult for whales to navigate in this chaos of sounds, to look for relatives, which, in turn, makes it difficult to find a partner for reproduction.
Particular damage is caused, according to American researchers, by low- and medium-frequency sonar systems SURTASS, US Navy warships.
A.A. Kazdym
List of used literature
Tomilin A. G. Animals of the USSR and adjacent countries. Vol. 9 (Cetaceans). M., 1957
Tomilin A. G. Cetaceans of the seas of the USSR. M., 1962.
Yablokov A.V., Belkovich V.M., Borisov V.I. Whales and dolphins. M., 1972.
Blue whale. Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
Animal Life // Ed. S. P. Naumov and A. P. Kuzyakin. Moscow: Education, 1971.
Calambokidis J., Steiger G. Blue Whales. Voyageur Press, 1998.
Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, 2002
Estes J. Whales, Whaling, and Ocean Ecosystems. University of California, 2006
Mead, James G., Brownell, Robert L. Mammal species of the world: a taxonomic and geographic reference. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005
William C. Cummings, Paul O. Thompson. Acoustical Society of America. 1971
Gambell R. The blue whale. Biologist, 1979
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Different representatives of the order of cetaceans have their own preferences and specializations in the diet. According to the types of main food, whales are divided into four groups:
- planktophages - animals mainly feeding on plankton (small crustaceans);
- teutophages - individuals of cetaceans whose diet is based on cephalopods of various sizes;
- ichthyophages are whales that feed mainly on fish of various species;
- sacrophages are representatives of the order of cetaceans, which are a kind of vegetarians, the basis of their diet is algae.
Individuals of the order of cetaceans consume food whole, without chewing, its daily requirement can reach a ton or more.
For different whales, the prey used for food can be both piece and mass. The pharynx of baleen whales is rather narrow, only plankton or small fish can pass through it, therefore these animals, the so-called "filterers", get food at the same time in significant quantities. To do this, a huge mammal wedges itself into a plankton colony - krill - and, opening its gigantic mouth, sucks in water along with crustaceans (plankton). With its very large tongue, having previously closed its mouth, the whale squeezes water through the whalebone. The water leaves, but the food remains. Such an operation, during the day, animals carry out repeatedly.
Krill is whale food. Toothed whales, the so-called "grabbers", get food by grabbing prey one by one, and hold it with their teeth or suck it in using their tongue. The basis of the diet of toothed whales is cephalopods and various types of fish. The sperm whale belonging to this group of whales has a pharynx of considerable size and could even swallow a person. This mammal, as a rule, obtains food at a considerable depth - more than one and a half kilometers - and squids form the basis of its diet. The only representatives of the order of cetaceans that constantly feed not only on cold-blooded, but also on warm-blooded animals, such as seals, birds and whales, are killer whales.
By the way, do you know
Cetaceans are the largest animals among all living on our planet: for example, adult blue whales have a body length of over twenty meters. The record holder among blue whales had this figure equal to thirty-three meters. The weight of an adult blue whale varies from ninety to one hundred and twenty tons.
Elephant, blue whale and other large whirlwinds. In the waters of the icy Arctic seas, real sea unicorns are found - narwhals. However, the “horn” of the narwhal is not a horn at all, but the front left tooth, which in the process of evolution turned into a finely twisted tusk. Only male narwhals have such a “horn”.
See page:
You will learn what whales eat.
whales- These are marine mammals that have the largest sizes, up to 33 meters in length, and weighing up to 120 tons. There are baleen whales, which are distinguished by the presence of a whalebone to filter plankton from the water, and toothed whales that hunt fish and squid, and use echolocation.
What do whales eat in the ocean
The diet of the blue whale is practically no different from that of other minke whales. It is based on plankton - small crustaceans no more than six centimeters long, from the euphausian order. These crustaceans form entire clusters - the so-called krill.
whales eat and fish, but it is a small part of their diet. Most likely, fish and other small marine animals, such as squid and cuttlefish, are swallowed by them accidentally when eating their main food - krill. It is possible that if there are no large concentrations of krill, the whales begin to additionally feed on both small schooling fish and small crustaceans that are not krill.
In order to eat, the whale opens its huge mouth and draws water into it with a mass of krill, fish and small squid. The whale's mouth can be stretched, thanks to special stripes on the throat and a movable articulation of the bones of the lower jaw. After that, the whale closes its mouth and with its large tongue begins to squeeze the water back, filtering it through the baleen. The plankton lingers and is then swallowed by the whale.
The lower jaw of a whale is simply huge that it can hold up to 32.6 m³ of water. Because of this, it is sometimes difficult for a whale to close it. Therefore, having collected his food, he often turns on his side or on his back so that his mouth slams shut under its own weight. Due to their huge size, whales have to eat a huge amount of krill per day, and this amounts to several tons.
In the summer, when they gain weight to make up their energy reserves, whales eat up to three and a half tons of food, thereby building up a layer of fat. This fat will insulate them, protecting them from the extremely cold water temperatures at low latitudes. Now you know what whales eat.
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