The water in a blue whale's mouth weighs as much as its entire body.
Scientists say a blue whale's mouth cavity is so wide and flexible that it can contain a volume of water equivalent to its own body size.
The whales are known as the largest animals on the planet and they filter the krill they eat from these huge watery mouthfuls.
Researchers based in the US and Canada studied the giant mammals to find out how much energy they needed to fuel their lunging feeding dives.
Robert Shadwick, a zoologist from the University of British Columbia who was part of the team studying the whales, told BBC News: "When you see the animals in the feeding ground, they take a breath and go under. "But they're not under water for very long considering how big they are.
The average dive time was just 11 minutes and the team was puzzled as to why the whales would not stay underwater for longer.
Longer dives would maximise the amount of food they consumed and possibly offset the great energy cost of each dive.
The researchers discovered that the blue whale's mouthful was so huge that, in these relatively short dives, they could consume up to 100 times the amount of energy they used in a dive.
Source: news.bbc.co.uk
The whales are known as the largest animals on the planet and they filter the krill they eat from these huge watery mouthfuls.
Researchers based in the US and Canada studied the giant mammals to find out how much energy they needed to fuel their lunging feeding dives.
Robert Shadwick, a zoologist from the University of British Columbia who was part of the team studying the whales, told BBC News: "When you see the animals in the feeding ground, they take a breath and go under. "But they're not under water for very long considering how big they are.
The average dive time was just 11 minutes and the team was puzzled as to why the whales would not stay underwater for longer.
Longer dives would maximise the amount of food they consumed and possibly offset the great energy cost of each dive.
The researchers discovered that the blue whale's mouthful was so huge that, in these relatively short dives, they could consume up to 100 times the amount of energy they used in a dive.
Source: news.bbc.co.uk
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