Some Whales Can Eat Upwards of 16 Tons of Tiny Shrimp a Day • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by krylon » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 12:17 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #27

RandomWorker wrote: post #21

A big blue whale is about 190t 16t is 8.4% of your body weight. That’s a 200lbs person eating 16lbs of food. Is that impossible? I’d love to see a breakdown of macros of humans and whales. I think 16t wouldn’t seem so crazy.

Hmm, being in the ocean means they have to burn a lot more calories relative to their mass, I imagine.

Not necessarily. AFAIK, moving through water at moderate speed is quite efficient if you have smooth skin, a streamlined body and a huge fluke. And once you built a thick layer of blubber, staying warm is not that big a problem.

Whales still need to eat a lot, because they only eat for a few months per year, so those reserves need to last for a long time, including, possibly, a pregnancy.

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

#52

Post by drran » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 12:20 PM UTC

iancmceachern wrote: post #20

grouseway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I always say to my wife - bugs rule the earth.

It's hard to find bugs now, because they are killed by insecticides/pesticides.

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

#53

Post by BBC-vs-neolibs » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 12:24 PM UTC

voz_ wrote: post #26

a9h74j wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Your username and comment make me think GPT3 wrote this. What do you mean?

If you zoom out on humanity, it looks like a pump which pumps stuff from stripmines to landfills.

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

#54

Post by a9h74j » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 12:32 PM UTC

voz_ wrote: post #26

a9h74j wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Your username and comment make me think GPT3 wrote this. What do you mean?

My post; your question at the very least is a fair one.

I believe a hint of metaphor there compares humanity as a whole to a relatively autonomous process. If 'Caton' does not clarify a frame for you, compare a pessimistic Adam Curtis. Caton enters as a riff on 'detritis'.

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

#55

Post by PretzelPirate » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 12:41 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #42

Thats 32,000 pounds. In a single day. If I ate 5 pounds of food a day, it would take me nearly 18 years to eat that much! Any shithead who hunts these magnificent animals deserves to be locked up for life

Cows, pigs, chicken, tuna…they’re all magnificent creatures.

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

#56

Post by masklinn » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 12:50 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #42

Thats 32,000 pounds. In a single day. If I ate 5 pounds of food a day, it would take me nearly 18 years to eat that much! Any shithead who hunts these magnificent animals deserves to be locked up for life

> Thats 32,000 pounds. In a single day. If I ate 5 pounds of food a day, it would take me nearly 18 years to eat that much!

It helps to be 200 tonnes though, or to grow from 3 to 200 tonnes in 10-15 years (3 to 20 in the 6~8 months weaning period, blue whales are estimated to produce >200kg milk a day).

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

#57

Post by darkerside » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #35

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…

Ants queens, for example, mate only once in their life and live for up to 20 years. All the individual ants in the colony are effectively clones from the genetic material of that one foundational mating act. So it makes sense to consider the ant colony to be one "organism", and yes, it's very much a long-lived, intelligent and massive organism.

Are twins also one organism?

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

#58

Post by adolph » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

darkerside wrote: post #57

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ants queens, for example, mate only once in their life and live for up to 20 years. All the individual ants in the colony are effectively clones from the genetic material of that one foundational mating act. So it makes sense to consider the ant colony to be one "organism", and yes, it's very much a long-lived, intelligent and massive organism.

Are twins also one organism?

In both cases genetics only has a partial say in phenomics.

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

#59

Post by vixen99 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #42

Thats 32,000 pounds. In a single day. If I ate 5 pounds of food a day, it would take me nearly 18 years to eat that much! Any shithead who hunts these magnificent animals deserves to be locked up for life

They live predominantly in Iceland, Norway and Japan.

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

#60

Post by moate » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

drran wrote: post #52

iancmceachern wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always say to my wife - bugs rule the earth.

It's hard to find bugs now, because they are killed by insecticides/pesticides.

What? Maybe certain specific bugs “I’m looking for a honey bee and having trouble finding one” but I have no shortage of bugs in/around my suburban home if you’re looking for bugs in general.