What food do whales eat?

krill

Also, what do whales eat?

Baleen whales tend to eat small manageable prey since they swallow their food whole and consume large quantities of small prey:

Fish.
Krill.
Squid.
Octopus.
Larve.
Small crabs.
Various crustaceans.
Various benthic animals.

Beside above, do whales eat meat? No, whales do not eat people, they primarily eat small aquatic lifeforms such as fish, squid and krill and a few dolphin species are even known to eat marine mammals such as seals, sea lions, walruses and whales, but they are not known for consuming or eating people.

Also to know is, what do blue whale eat?

Blue whales filter their food through their baleen plates. Blue whales eat krill (euphausiids) and copepods. A blue whale can eat up to 8,000 lbs. of krill during its peak consumption period.

What do cetaceans eat?

Diet. All cetaceans are carnivores and do not consume plants or algae as food. The large baleen whales eat schooling organisms that range in length from minute drifting mollusks, copepods (1 cm or less), krill (1–5 cm), and small fish and squid up to about 40 cm.

38 Related Question Answers Found

Do whales drink water?

Although it's not well known how much they drink, whales are capable of drinking sea water because they have specialized kidneys to process the salt, which is excreted in their urine. As the whale processes the prey, it extracts water. In addition, whales need less water than we do.

Why do whales keep water in their mouths?

They open their mouths very wide and hold a big mouthful of sea water. Their throats stretch very wide to make the space inside their mouth even bigger. Then they close their mouth and squeeze out the seawater. The food does not escape because, instead of teeth, these whales have filters called baleen.

Do whales eat sharks?

These marine mammals have been known to attack and eat everything from small fish and turtles to squid, seals, sea lions and even large whales. Killer whales also hunt, attack and eat sharks. The killer whale then grabs the shark and flips it over to incapacitate it by causing tonic immobility.

Do whales have teeth?

Whales With Teeth

Some whales have teeth, and all dolphins and porpoises have teeth. Approximately 65 different species of toothed whales exist. Toothed whales have one blowhole. These whales tend to be smaller in size than baleen whales.

How do whales sleep in the water?

Observations of bottlenose dolphins in aquariums and zoos, and of whales and dolphins in the wild, show two basic methods of sleeping: they either rest quietly in the water, vertically or horizontally, or sleep while swimming slowly next to another animal. At these times, the mother will also sleep on the move.

Do whales eat tuna?

As adults, they eat fairly large bony fishes and invertebrates. Similarly, Atlantic bluefin tuna are eaten by a wide variety of predators. Adult Atlantic Bluefin are not eaten by anything other than the very largest billfishes, toothed whales, and some open ocean shark species.

How often do whales eat?

Gray whales eat about 150,000 kg (340,000 lbs.) of food during a 130 to 140 day feeding period--a daily average intake of about 1,089 kg (2,400 lbs.).

Can a blue whale eat a human?

Despite their large size blue whales do not eat people. Without teeth they lack the ability to tear apart their prey so its likely that it would be impossible for these baleen whales to eat a human. Third the throat of a blue whale is narrow and usually measures in at less than 1 ft. wide!

Can a whale eat a person?

Whales, in general, are not capable of swallowing a human being and therefore will not eat you. A sperm whale does have a large esophagus that is capable of swallowing large mammals, but its primary food source is fish and large squid and octopus found in the deep, so you might think of sperm whales as dangerous.

How much do whales eat daily?

When it comes to eating food the blue whale can consume as many as 40 million krill per day, which ends up weighing close to 8,000 pounds of food on a daily basis!

Why are blue whales dying?

Whaling killed hundreds of thousands of blue whales from the early 1900s until it became illegal in 1966. Blue whales continue to be threatened by boats, anthropogenic noise, pollution with toxic chemicals, climate change (which may affect how the population of krill), and from fishing.

How many calories do whales eat?

The filter-feeding strategy of blue whales, the largest animals on Earth, may explain their enormous size, according to a study that determined a single mouthful of food can contain 457,000 calories, or 240 times as much energy as they burn when grabbing that mouthful.

Why do whales have baleen instead of teeth?

Instead of teeth, baleen whales have a substance called a "baleen plate." Since they have this plate, they must hunt and eat their food differently than toothed whales do. Because of this plate, the baleen whale can catch food simply by swimming toward the prey with its mouth wide open.

What is the diet of a whale?

Gray whales are unique because they eat food from the bottom of the ocean, including marine worms and other invertebrates. Right whales eat krill, small crustaceans, and zooplankton. Fin whales eat a variety of schooling fish, crustaceans, and squids. Blue whales mostly eat krill.

Do blue whales have teeth?

Blue whales do not have teeth. Instead, they have 270 - 395 plates of baleen on either side of their jaw. Baleen look like long thin teeth placed very close to one another. They are used to catch small animals swimming in the water, which the whale eats.

How loud is blue whale?

188 decibels

What is the largest blue whale?

The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal belonging to the baleen whale suborder Mysticeti. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of 29.9 meters (98 feet) and weight of 173 tonnes (190 tons), it is the largest animal known to have ever existed.