In 1947, there was a shocking "blue whale collision" incident in the Southern Ocean, a 180-ton blue whale, while foraging, unfortunately hit a huge ship, resulting in direct body fracture, and finally blood stained the sea, unfortunately died.
Afterwards, the crew caught the blue whale ashore and found that its mouth was so huge that it could stand 50 people with only its tongue, and when it was all opened, it could even hold 10 elephants, which was incredible. So, how many tons of water can a blue whale swallow in one breath? Why are they so big?
About the Blue Whale
Blue whales are the largest animals ever built, but also a well-deserved ocean overlord, they have an average body length of up to 25 meters, weigh up to 190 tons, equivalent to the sum of 30 elephants, of which only the tongue weighs 4,000 pounds, the intestines are up to 300 meters long, is the true sense of the marine giant.
The power of the blue whale is also very terrifying, a random blow can overturn a small boat, can be called the Hercules of the animal kingdom, the speed of the blue whale is also very fast, the maximum speed can reach 45 kilometers per hour, and the endurance is amazing, sprinting for 30 minutes will not be tired.
Blue whales are also the loudest animals on earth, they can produce 188 decibels of high notes, 80 decibels higher than electric drills, blue whales also eat amazing amounts, an adult blue whale eats 4 tons of krill a day to fill its stomach, this amount of food is 10,000 times that of humans. #真知新坐标 #
The blue whale is the largest single animal in existence, with an average body length of 25 meters and a weight of about 150 tons. Don't look at the size of the body, they can feed on small krill, and sometimes they will prey on swarms of cephalopods (such as squid squid) and small fish (sardines, etc.). They accelerate closer to the surface of the water when they eat, and they can sprint at speeds of 40-50 km/h. Then open their mouths sideways, grabbing food and seawater at a time can weigh a staggering 50-90 tons, and then they squeeze the abdominal cavity and tongue to drain the seawater from between the keratin-made whale whisker crevices, and finally swallow the filtered remaining food.
Why don't blue whales swallow big fish and seabirds by mistake? Despite its overwhelming swallowing, the blue whale's throat struggles to swallow a single object larger than the size of a football. Blue whales can eat about 500 kilograms of krill at a time, which is more than 450,000 calories, and they can eat about 40 million krill in a day, but they can also not eat for 6 months when breeding and migrating (with cubs).
The resistance generated by the blue whales swallowing huge amounts of seawater when they prey will slow down their swimming speed significantly, and it will also consume a lot of energy, so they generally only choose large shrimp or fish schools with high prey density, after all, the calories obtained by predation must be higher than the calories consumed during predation.
As a baleen whale, blue whales do not have sharp teeth, so they can only feed on small marine organisms, but due to the large size of blue whales, energy consumption and demand are relatively large, so they put their main prey on krill.
Krill is a general term for all crustaceans in the order Krill, in this order there are a total of 11 different genera, close to 90 different species, they are widely distributed in the oceans, but also have a huge population, only in the Antarctic sea distribution of Antarctic krill conservatively have a conservative 500 million tons of holdings, so the global ocean distribution, the huge population and the blue whale can only filter eating characteristics, so that krill has become the main prey of blue whales.
The body of the blue whale is so large that it has 2,000 kilograms of tongue, 3,000 kilograms of skull, 1,000 kilograms of liver, 500 kilograms of heart (the size of a cart), 8,000 kilograms of blood circulation, and 45 kilograms of testicles of males. If its intestines are straightened, it is 200-300 meters; The blood vessels are thick enough to hold a child, the dirty walls are more than 60 centimeters thick, and the penis of the male is up to 3 meters long.
Fortunately, due to the buoyancy of the ocean, it does not need to support its weight as hard as a terrestrial animal, and its large body helps to maintain a constant body temperature.
Because blue whales have no teeth, the main food of blue whales is mainly shrimp, small fish, jellyfish, diatoms and various plankton, and it cannot swallow the single food that is larger than basketball, so it cannot swallow humans at all.
A blue whale consumes about 2 million krill a day, eats 4,000-8,000 kilograms a day, and feels hungry if it has less than 2,000 kilograms of food in its belly.
The speed of travel is 2-6 km/h during feeding, 5-33 km/h during migration, and a maximum of 20-48 km/h when chased. Generally, 10-20 small dives are followed by a deep dive, the shallow dive interval is 12-20 seconds, and the deep dive can last for 10-30 minutes. The spray column is narrow and straight, 6-12 m high.
