Some Whales Can Eat Upwards of 16 Tons of Tiny Shrimp a Day

Post by gumby » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:06 AM UTC

ericjang wrote: post #3

I am not only awed by the size and bulk of whales, but also the sheer meatiness of shrimp. It seems like these organisms are > 90% meat. Why do they have so much meat? What do they need all that meat for?

Post by ars » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:16 AM UTC

a9h74j wrote: post #11

ars wrote: post #8

"That’s because the more whales eat, the more they poop, releasing nutrients like iron into the ocean water to fertilize the growth of phytoplankton, which in turn serve as a primary food source in the marine food web." Um, the whales are not creating iron. They are eating it and putting (some of) it back where it came from. This articles makes it seem like the more they eat the more iron is there. A dead krill will…

I have seen the argument (in Derrick Jensen) that whales migrate vertically, so the iron they distribute is somewhere else than originally, placing whales (if so) as a key factor in an iron circulation system.

Post by grouseway » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:47 AM UTC

gumby wrote: post #13

LenP wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All wild mammal biomass. Domesticated mammal biomass is massive. In fact, humans + our livestock comprise 96% of mammal biomass: https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/17788/how-muc...

if you are thinking of animals, JBS Haldane had it right: god has an inordinate fondness for beetles. But in the scheme of things, animals aren’t really that big a deal: > Of the 550 gigatons of biomass carbon on Earth, animals make up about 2 gigatons, with insects comprising half of that and fish taking up another 0.7 gigatons. Everything else, including mammals, birds, nematodes and mollusks are roughly 0.3 gigato…

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:57 AM UTC

a9h74j wrote: post #10

0des wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a population of shrimp that have been breeding in my aquarium for quite some time now. They spend most of their time picking through detritus and otherwise managing the cleanliness of the rocks and sandbed. I'm curious if their 'meatiness' has something to do with how rapidly they grow and reproduce and the size of the clutches involved. A single female can have around 100 eggs or more attached to the undersid…

Caton in Overshoot called humans a detritus species. Your very descriptive paragraph might be mined for metaphors. For example, in place of a brain, does humanity have going a peristaltic action connecting mines to landfills?

Post by iancmceachern » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

grouseway wrote: post #16

gumby wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you are thinking of animals, JBS Haldane had it right: god has an inordinate fondness for beetles. But in the scheme of things, animals aren’t really that big a deal: > Of the 550 gigatons of biomass carbon on Earth, animals make up about 2 gigatons, with insects comprising half of that and fish taking up another 0.7 gigatons. Everything else, including mammals, birds, nematodes and mollusks are roughly 0.3 gigato…

Here's another cool visualization - with different figures however. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-biomass-of-earth-in...