What do sperm whales eat?
Sperm whales are impressive marine mammals with their huge heads. There are teeth in the lower jaw that can weigh up to a kilogram. What the animals eat is therefore particularly interesting.
It is predators underwater who, despite their size, are successful as such. We now know what they eat, but you don't have to believe everything that is said. Some of it is just speculation.
Not all whales eat the same thing
- Toothed whales, to which the sperm whale belongs, have teeth and roam the seas as hunters. The baleen whales, which include the mighty blue whale, are not predators. With their horn plates in their upper jaw, they filter small marine animals out of the water. In doing so, they ingest large amounts of animal plankton.
- Sperm whales mainly eat squid, less fish and sometimes crustaceans. The main food, however, is squid. Among them is the giant squid, which is still numerous to humans mystery gives up.
- I'm sure you know dolphins. They also belong to the toothed whales and mainly eat fish. They rarely hunt for squid. The orca, the largest species of dolphin, is a dangerous predator. In addition to penguins, it also preyed on seals, common seals and even other small whale species.
Sperm whales and giant squids - battle of the giants
- Such a fight has never been observed. Still, you may know stories about the struggle of the underwater giants. In their search for prey, sperm whales can dive up to 1000 meters deep. Occasionally there is talk of a depth of up to 3000 meters. To do this, the animals manage to stay under water for about an hour without breathing.
- Giant squids live in the seas between about 300 and 1000 meters depth. The ten-armed squids are giants among the cephalopods. Since the tentacles are very stretchable, an exact length specification is hardly possible. In 1887, a total of 18 meters long animal was washed up on the beach at Wellington. However, there are also legends of 60 meter long animals.
- Although not much is known about the way of life of the giant octopus (which they are not!), The remains of the animals have already been found several times in the stomachs of sperm whales. So whales also eat giant squids. It is believed that the sperm whale is the only predator of the ten-arm giants. On the skin of the whales there are always scars that come from the suction cups of the strong tentacles.
- These scars can be very large. If you read about the battle of the giants, the large scars are often the source of speculation about the size of the squid. However, because they grow with the skin, they become larger as the sperm whales get older. One cannot directly infer the size of the squid from them. Thus it cannot be clearly described how a fight between the two animals takes place. The loser, however, is always likely to be the squid. With a weight of up to 50 tons, a sperm whale is too big for a cephalopod.
- The huge head of the sperm whale is not directly related to the feeding of the animals. You have an extraordinary organ in your head, the Spermaceti organ. It is filled with a gelatinous liquid that varies in consistency depending on the temperature. The importance of this organ in the huge forehead of marine mammals has not been clearly clarified. However, with its help, sperm whales can make extremely loud sounds. They should be loud enough to stun prey. So does the giant head have a role to play in feeding the whales? You now know what the animals eat, how they do it and how they prey on their prey, so there is still more research to be done.
What do whales eat?
In the vastness of the oceans live the gentle giants - the whales. As a medium-sized ...
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