Sadly, shrimp are all now made of plastic.
Some Whales Can Eat Upwards of 16 Tons of Tiny Shrimp a Day
61–68 of 68 posts
Re: Some Whales Can Eat Upwards of 16 Tons of Tiny Shrimp a Day
#62Hold my datil pepper sauce...
But, seriously, 16 tons per day. That's crazy. That's a LOT of shrimp in the ocean.
Re: Some Whales Can Eat Upwards of 16 Tons of Tiny Shrimp a Day
#63Re: Some Whales Can Eat Upwards of 16 Tons of Tiny Shrimp a Day
#64Re: Some Whales Can Eat Upwards of 16 Tons of Tiny Shrimp a Day
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
In TFA they count 7.6B humans, but the mass is only the "dry-weight of carbon". So I guess the average person only contains about 8kg of carbon.
“Ugly bags of mostly water” is how an alien in Star Trek once described us.
Not merely “water”: it’s the very ocean in my veins.
Re: Some Whales Can Eat Upwards of 16 Tons of Tiny Shrimp a Day
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
My understanding is that pretty much all marine mammals eat a ton of calories relative to their body weight compared to land mammals, and I can't think of an explanation of that besides needing to keep warm in the water.
Re: Some Whales Can Eat Upwards of 16 Tons of Tiny Shrimp a Day
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was a shock for me when I learned of this. It's a great way to show people who think humanity somehow doesn't have the capability to have an effect on greenhouse gas emissions for example. We have totally and completely reshaped the earth in a matter of centuries in what should normally take thousands or tens of thousands of years.
We are probably not the first species to do that. All invasive species reshape the ecosystems they enter. And just now we are gaining awareness of how we can change the environment in a deliberate way.
Few species have spread as far and wide as we have, and at this point the ones that are ubiquitous are already adapted to the environment
Re: Some Whales Can Eat Upwards of 16 Tons of Tiny Shrimp a Day
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
My understanding is that pretty much all marine mammals eat a ton of calories relative to their body weight compared to land mammals, and I can't think of an explanation of that besides needing to keep warm in the water.
It makes sense. Building and maintaining that layer of blubber must take a lot of eating for a large animal, and most large whales have their feeding grounds in fairly cold waters.
And of course, building and maintaining a body of 10 or more metric tons requires a lot of food to begin with.