#头条创作挑战赛#
As a giant beast in the sea, the blue whale can make the surrounding area become dark clouds and obscure the sky and the sun with every bowel movement, but through scientific research, it has been found that these feces not only do not pollute the ocean, but also help the survival of marine life, why is this?
How do more than 150 tons of behemoths eat?
Although the blue whale lives in the ocean and looks like a fish, it is actually a mammal. As mammals that live in the ocean, blue whales are many times larger than other fish, and they generally weigh between 150 and 180 tons, figuratively speaking, the weight of more than 25 African elephants, which can also be understood as the weight of 2,000 to 3,000 adults combined.
With such a large blue whale, its body organs also have an astonishing weight. According to research, the tongue of the blue whale can reach 2 tons, and the tongue can stand on more than 50 people, with a skull of 3 tons, a liver of 1 ton, and a heart of 0.5 tons, which is the size of a small car. Their blood vessels are so thick that they can fit a child, and the blood in them weighs 8 tons.
Blue whales belong to mammals, so blue whale cubs are viviparous, and the cubs that are born are large in size and weigh even more than an adult elephant. Blue whales of this size have to drink 400 liters of breast milk a day during lactation, and this appetite has also contributed to their amazing growth rate, according to research, blue whale cubs can gain 90 kilograms of weight per day.
Not only is this animal huge, but it is also incredibly powerful, and according to research, blue whales can produce between 1,500 and 1,700 horsepower if they parade at full speed. It's so fast that even many whalers give up on the chase.
So how does such a sea monster eat?
In fact, the blue whale eats very simple and rude, and even does not have to go to great lengths to hunt like other wild beasts, as long as they open their mouths, the small fish and shrimp around them will be swallowed by the blue whale along with the seawater. The mouth of the blue whale is very large, and when it is at its maximum, it can fit 8 cars.
When the fish and shrimp are mixed with the seawater, they close their mouths and close their stomachs, and under the squeezing of the abdomen, the mixture of fish and shrimp will spew out again, but the blue whale has two rows of plate-like whiskers on its mouth, which are like a sieve to keep the fish and shrimp in it and filter out the seawater.
According to research, a blue whale eats about 4 to 8 tons of food every day, and the number of fish and shrimp reaches about 2 million. So with such a large amount of food, what is the excretion of blue whales?
Excretion scenes that cover the sky
In general, blue whales can dive to depths between 200 and 500 meters, but at such depths, the water on their bodies is too compact, which is not conducive to defecation. So whenever they want to "get rid of it", they will surface or come close to the surface of the water, because the water pressure here is relatively low.
According to research, when the blue whale "unties", it can discharge about 2 tons of feces at a time, and the picture can be imagined. At this time, it looked like a dark cloud before a storm, and in an instant, it spread out in all directions, obscuring the sky and the sun. It is said that this kind of scene is enough to pollute a 100-meter radius of water. However, such a disgusting scene is not useless.
The 2 tons of feces of the blue whale, although excrement, are also rich in organic matter. As soon as they excrete, they will provide an endless meal for countless plankton, which in turn are food for small fish and shrimp, and small fish and shrimp are food for blue whales, so this constitutes a set of ecological circulation system. Of course, these small fish and shrimp are not only the food of the blue whale, but also the food of other fish, so the excretion of the blue whale can feed many underwater animals.
In addition to animals, plants on the seabed can also be blessed, and these excrements are natural organic fertilizers, which are absorbed by the plants of the deep seabed, which in turn photosynthesize and improve the natural environment of the seabed.
As the saying goes, "one whale falls, everything grows", these huge whales, whether they are their own excrement or carcass, can make a huge contribution to the ecological balance of the ocean.
But such a great animal faces serious challenges to survive.
A blue whale facing a desperate situation
Humans have been hunting whaling for a long time, because whales are large and can provide many important supplies for humans, such as refining whale fat, which can be used to make lamp polish, soap and shoe polish.
The blue whale is one of the best in its class, and if you get it from it, you will get more, but in the early days, people did not target the blue whale, because the size and speed of the blue whale are not accessible to ordinary fishing boats.
However, with the advancement of human fishing technology, fishing boats began to be equipped with some advanced fishing equipment. Since then, the blue whale has also entered the list of those who have been killed.
In 1935, the United States, Japan, and Norway were recorded as the largest whaling operations, and in order to be able to quickly dispose of the blue whales they caught, they even built large "factory ships" that could be disposed of on the spot without dragging them ashore.
Some data show that before the large-scale killing of blue whales, the global number of blue whales was between more than 200,000 and more than 300,000, but after humans began to hunt, the number of blue whales dropped sharply. By 1930, the number of blue whales killed by these fleets reached 28,325, and at the end of World War II, blue whales were almost extinct, and later due to human pollution of the ocean, many blue whales died
In 1960, the International Whaling Commission began to ban the killing of blue whales, but by this time the number of blue whales killed had reached 350,000, and the blue whale population was even less than 1% of 100 years ago, and the remaining number in the world was less than 50.
After 40 years of the ban on whaling, the global blue whale population began to recover, with a 2002 tally showing that the number of blue whales had recovered to between 5,000 and 12,000, but if each population had been counted accurately, the number would have been much higher.
Although the killing of blue whales is prohibited by law, their survival is still severely challenged. Before 1982, it was recorded that blue whales were common along the coast of California in North America, but after 1982, the number of blue whales in this area decreased dramatically. It is speculated that the main reason for this phenomenon is the melting of glaciers caused by global warming, which has reduced marine plankton, and with the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the acidification of marine water is more serious than before, which affects the spawning, growth, and feeding of krill, so it affects the number of blue whales.
In addition to this, as human activities at sea become more frequent, there are also many factors that affect blue whales. For example, blue whales can be hit by high-speed boats, cut by sharp propellers, and some can become entangled in fishermen's nets, all of which can cause the death of blue whales.
Blue whales communicate with each other through sound, but with the advent of ship noise and sonar on the ocean, it has had a serious impact on their life and mental state.
The U.S. Marine Animal Protection Act even regulates the areas where blue whales are located, prohibiting fishermen from fishing in these areas, and imposing restrictions on the speed of boats in the hope of reducing harm to blue whales.
When a whale falls, all things are born. We have seen from the blue whale the interlocking of the natural ecosphere, and the seizure and contribution of various creatures, if there is a problem in the middle link, then it is the collapse of the entire ecosphere. So if all the blue whales on the planet were gone, what would happen to us?
We don't dare to imagine that although human beings are out of the wild living environment, but human beings still live on the earth, in the final analysis, no matter how advanced we have technology, we have not got rid of the ecological cycle of the earth, if a link goes wrong, then human beings can get out of the whole body? We don't dare to speculate on this kind of question.
Therefore, the right thing to do is not to destroy, but to constantly improve, not only to protect animals, but also to continue human civilization.