Why do whales' eat full, don't worry about starving?

Discover the unexpected consequences of 'defecating' whales and eat back your own "waste".

Whales are the most massive group of animals on the planet. The most representative representative is the blue whale, which is up to 30 meters long and weighs 170 tons. Relatives of blue whales are also in the 'massive' group of animals. On average, all the whales in the ocean consume about 1.5 billion tons of food.

Although our oceans are extremely large and rich in organisms, the actual amount of nutrition to meet the giant whale's body shape is quite low.So the question is, where do these giant whales get their food from?

To answer this question, let's review the concept of the food chain . In oceans, marine algae are organisms capable of photosynthesis making organic matter. The species of shrimp, small fish often eat seaweed. Later, these small animals became a source of food for larger fish, including whales.

Therefore, we can say that seaweed is the first organism in the food chain. If the seaweed is small, the oceans will have less fish and shrimps, so there will not be enough nutrition for whales to grow in quantity.

Enlarged image of an ocean algae

Besides, algae in the ocean need a lot of iron elements to grow. But through research, scientists found that iron content in seawater is very poor.

In theory, the number of shrimp, marine algae consuming will also be low. But whales eat 1.5 billion tons of shrimp and other small crustaceans every day. So where does their nutrition come from?

Scientists have discovered the solution to this secret - that's whale dung.

It sounds a bit absurd, but the truth is that after eating a full meal, whale feces become an extremely valuable source of iron concentrate. Oceanographer Stephen Nicole collected 27 samples of whale feces and identified the iron content in the rich whale feces 10 million times more than normal seawater.

At the end of the digestive process, the whale will 'defecate' right above the sea surface, where sunlight is easily illuminated. And so the seaweed species benefit. They reproduce quickly from this particular 'fertilizer' source. The number of small fish and shrimp eating seaweed increased and the result was that whales had more food.

One more thing, whales often dive deep into the sea floor to eat squid species . Because the deep sea pressure is very high, whales wait until they reach the water surface to digest and disintegrate, enriching the mineral content of the surface water layer. Estimated each year, a sperm whale transports 50 tons of iron from the sea floor to the sea surface.

This scientific discovery confirms the extremely important ecological role of whales. In the 1960s, whales in Antarctic waters were hunted to near extinction. According to the ecological rule, when a predator is destroyed, the animals that are eaten by them like shrimps will increase because there are no enemies.

Thug is one of the whale's food choices.The number of crustaceans dropped sharply when whales were hunted due to the collapse of the food chain.

But scientists note the opposite phenomenon, the number of small crustaceans has plunged rapidly despite no longer eating predators. Due to the lack of whale feces, seaweed does not grow and leads to the collapse of the food chain.

So whales are not merely voracious voracious creatures . In fact, they are a miraculous 'defecate cum recycling' machine, ensuring that the cycle of iron takes place continuously in the oceans. Thanks to whales, marine life becomes richer and develops more steadily.

Therefore, we can conclude that whale protection is not only for the benefit of this animal, but also helps preserve the entire ecosystem, but also the fragility of the oceans.

* The article is based on the information and views of scientist Robert Krulwich from NPR's Science page.