Sperm whales usually dive between , and sometimes , in search of food. Such dives can last more than an hour. They feed on several species, notably the giant squid, but also the colossal squid, octopuses, and fish such as demersal rays, but their diet is mainly medium-sized squid. Some prey may be taken accidentally while eating other items. Most of what is known about deep-sea squid has been learned from specimens in captured sperm whale stomachs, although more recent studies analysed faeces. One study, carried out around the Galápagos, found that squid from the genera "Histioteuthis" (62%), "Ancistrocheirus" (16%), and "Octopoteuthis" (7%) weighing between were the most commonly taken.
Diet
Sperm whale
Sperm whale | Diet
They feed on several species, notably the giant squid, colossal squid, octopuses and fishes such as demersal rays. However, their diet is mainly medium-sized squid. Giant squid, colossal squid, ctopuses, and fish. They feed on several species, notably the giant squid, but also the colossal squid, octopuses, and fish such as demersal rays The giant squid, the colossal squid, octopuses, and fish such as demersal rays, medium-sized squid
what ocean zone does the sperm whale live in
user
They are relatively abundant from the poles to the equator and are found in all the oceans.
assistant
where does this whale species get its name from?
user
It is a truncation of "spermaceti whale".
assistant
what does it look like?
user
It is distinguished by its large tooth.
assistant
can it make sounds?
user
Yes a "creak" and a "coda" are some of sound names used as per the situation they are in.
assistant
what do they feed on?
user
Sperm whales usually dive between , and sometimes , in search of food. Such dives can last more than an hour. They feed on several species, notably the giant squid, but also the colossal squid, octopuses, and fish such as demersal rays, but their diet is mainly medium-sized squid. Some prey may be taken accidentally while eating other items. Most of what is known about deep-sea squid has been learned from specimens in captured sperm whale stomachs, although more recent studies analysed faeces. One study, carried out around the Galápagos, found that squid from the genera "Histioteuthis" (62%), "Ancistrocheirus" (16%), and "Octopoteuthis" (7%) weighing between were the most commonly taken.
Sperm whale | Diet
In one case, three sperm whales were observed attacking or playing with a megamouth. Sperm whales have also been noted to feed on bioluminescent pyrosomes such as "Pyrosoma atlanticum". It is thought that the foraging strategy of sperm whales for bioluminescent squids may also explain the presence of these light-emitting pyrosomes in the diet of the sperm whale. The sharp beak of a consumed squid lodged in the whale's intestine may lead to the production of ambergris, analogous to the production of pearls in oysters. The irritation of the intestines caused by squid beaks stimulates the secretion of this lubricant-like substance.
Sperm whale | Diet
Sperm whales are prodigious feeders and eat around 3% of their body weight per day. The total annual consumption of prey by sperm whales worldwide is estimated to be about . In comparison, human consumption of seafood is estimated to be .
Sperm whale | Diet
Sperm whales sometimes take sablefish and toothfish from long lines. Long-line fishing operations in the Gulf of Alaska complain that sperm whales take advantage of their fishing operations to eat desirable species straight off the line, sparing the whales the need to hunt. However, the amount of fish taken is very little compared to what the sperm whale needs per day. Video footage has been captured of a large male sperm whale "bouncing" a long line, to gain the fish. Sperm whales are believed to prey on the megamouth shark, a rare and large deep-sea species discovered in the 1970s.
Sperm whale | Diet
Killer whales and bottlenose dolphins have also been known to drive their prey onto a beach to feed on it, a behaviour known as beach or strand feeding. The shape of the snout may correlate with tooth number and thus feeding mechanisms. The narwhal, with its blunt snout and reduced dentition, relies on suction feeding. Sperm whales usually dive between , and sometimes , in search of food. Such dives can last more than an hour. They feed on several species, notably the giant squid, but also the colossal squid, octopuses, and fish like demersal rays, but their diet is mainly medium-sized squid.
Toothed whale | Foraging and predation
The dwarf sperm whale is an open ocean predator. The stomach contents of stranded dwarf sperm whales comprise mainly squid and, to a lesser degree, deep sea fish (from the mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones) and crustaceans. However, crustaceans make up a sizable part of the diets of Hawaiian dwarf sperm whales, up to 15%. The stomach contents of whales washed up in different regions of the world indicate a preference for cock-eyed squid and glass squid across its range, particularly the elongate jewel squid ("Histioteuthis reversa") and "Taonius". The throat grooves and the developed musculature in the throat in "Kogia" are probably adaptations for increasing the volume of the mouth for suction feeding, possibly the best-developed among toothed whales.
Dwarf sperm whale | Diet
Also, the blunt snout, lack of teeth, and reduced jaw are characteristics seen in other suction feeding toothed whales. The whale uses its sharp teeth to hold onto prey while expelling water from the mouth. Dwarf sperm whale calves typically start eating solid food once they have reached a size of around though are not fully weaned until they reach around . Toothed whale calves generally start eating solid food at around 6 months, and mothers stop lactating after around 18 to 20 months.
Dwarf sperm whale | Diet
The feces are collected in nets and DNA is separated, individually identified, and matched with known species. The whale competes for food against clupeid fish (herring and its relatives), basking sharks, and right whales. In the North Atlantic, it feeds primarily on calanoid copepods, specifically "Calanus finmarchicus", with a secondary preference for euphausiids, in particular "Meganyctiphanes norvegica" and "Thysanoessa inermis". In the North Pacific, it feeds on similar zooplankton, including the copepod species "Neocalanus cristatus", "N. plumchrus", and "Calanus pacificus", and euphausiid species "Euphausia pacifica", "E. similis", "Thysanoessa inermis", "T. longipes", "T. gregaria" and "T. spinifera". In addition, it eats larger organisms, such as the Japanese flying squid, "Todarodes pacificus pacificus", and small fish, including anchovies ("Engraulis japonicus" and "E.
Sei whale | Feeding
Analysis of stomach contents suggests that pygmy sperm whales feed primarily on cephalopods, most commonly including bioluminescent species found in midwater environments. Most of the cephalopod hunting is known to be pelagic, and fairly shallow, within the first 100 m of the surface. The most common prey are reported to include glass squid, and lycoteuthid and ommastrephid squid, although the whales also consume other squid, and octopuses. They have also been reported to eat some deep-sea shrimps, but, compared with dwarf sperm whales, relatively few fish. Predators may include great white sharks and killer whales. Pygmy sperm whales and dwarf sperm whales are unique among cetaceans in using a form of "ink" to evade predation in a manner similar to squid.
Pygmy sperm whale | Diet/foraging behavior
Both species have a sac in the lower portion of their intestinal tracts that contains up to 12 liters of dark reddish-brown fluid, which can be ejected to confuse or discourage potential predators.
Pygmy sperm whale | Diet/foraging behavior
The whale shark is a filter feeder – one of only three known filter-feeding shark species (along with the basking shark and the megamouth shark). It feeds on plankton including copepods, krill, fish eggs, Christmas Island red crab larvae and small nektonic life, such as small squid or fish. It also feeds on clouds of eggs during mass spawning of fish and corals. The many rows of vestigial teeth play no role in feeding. Feeding occurs either by ram filtration, in which the animal opens its mouth and swims forward, pushing water and food into the mouth, or by active suction feeding, in which the animal opens and closes its mouth, sucking in volumes of water that are then expelled through the gills.
Whale shark | Diet
This rorqual is a filter feeder, using its baleen plates to obtain its food by opening its mouth, engulfing or skimming large amounts of the water containing the food, then straining the water out through the baleen, trapping any food items inside its mouth. The sei whale feeds near the surface of the ocean, swimming on its side through swarms of prey to obtain its average of about of food each day. For an animal of its size, for the most part, its preferred foods lie unusually relatively low in the food chain, including zooplankton and small fish. The whale's diet preferences has been determined from stomach analyses, direct observation of feeding behavior, and analyzing fecal matter collected near them, which appears as a dilute brown cloud.
Sei whale | Feeding
The right whales' diets consist primarily of zooplankton, primarily the tiny crustaceans called copepods, as well as krill, and pteropods, although they are occasionally opportunistic feeders. As with other baleens, they feed by filtering prey from the water. They swim with an open mouth, filling it with water and prey. The whale then expels the water, using its baleen plates to retain the prey. Prey must occur in sufficient numbers to trigger the whale's interest, be large enough that the baleen plates can filter it, and be slow enough that it cannot escape. The "skimming" may take place on the surface, underwater, or even at the ocean's bottom, indicated by mud occasionally observed on right whales' bodies.
Right whale | Diet and predation
Like other mesoplodont whales, it is thought that Deraniyagala's whale feeds mainly on deep-sea squid-and-fish.
Deraniyagala's beaked whale | Diet
They use a suction technique, aided by a pair of grooves on the underside of their head, not unlike the throat pleats on the rorquals, to feed.
Whale | Odontocetes
Many sperm whales have scars on their backs, believed to be caused by the hooks of colossal squid. Colossal squid are a major prey item for sperm whales in the Antarctic; 14% of the squid beaks found in the stomachs of these sperm whales are those of the colossal squid, which indicates that colossal squid make up 77% of the biomass consumed by these whales. Many other animals also feed on colossal squid, including beaked whales (such as the southern bottlenose whale), pilot whales, southern elephant seals, Patagonian toothfish, sleeper sharks ("Somniosus antarcticus"), and albatrosses (e.g., the wandering and sooty albatrosses).
Colossal squid | Predation
Humpback whales have a vertical throat roughly the size of a grapefruit. They cannot physically swallow anything larger than that. They are carnivores and primarily feed on small fish such as krill, juvenile salmon, and herring. They are also baleen whales, which means that they do not have teeth, so they must be able to eat things that they can swallow whole. They have several vertical grooves running down the length of their body so that they can hold large volumes of water and fish at one time. They feed for up to twenty-two hours a day, taking in anywhere from 4,400-5,500 pounds of food per day.
Bubble-net feeding | Diet
Nothing is known about the diet of this species, although it is assumed to feed on deepwater squid and fish. Because they lack functional teeth, they presumably capture most of their prey by suction. Body scarring suggests there may be extensive fighting between males, which is common in beaked whales. Nothing is known about breeding in this species.
Hector's beaked whale | Distribution and ecology
Using their large and deeply rooted teeth, wide-opening jaws, and great size, they likely fed on a variety of sea life, including fish, cephalopods, seals, and small whales and dolphins, occupying a niche similar to the modern day killer whale ("Orcinus orca"). In fact, "Zygophyseter" is known colloquially as the "killer sperm whale" in reference to this. Likewise, they may have employed a similar hunting strategy of pursuing prey to tire it out before eventually drowning it. However, given their size, they probably did not need to hunt in groups. "Livyatan" probably targeted medium-sized whales ranging in size from .
Macroraptorial sperm whale | Paleobiology
One was even found "full of baby squid" (later identified as "Lycoteuthis diadema"). In the Gulf of California, they mainly feed on Pacific sardine ("Sardinops sagax") and Pacific thread herring ("Opisthonema libertate") (about 88%), but also feed on euphausiids (mostly "Nyctiphanes simplex", 11%). They have also been observed feeding on pelagic red crabs ("Pleuroncodes planipes") off southern Baja California. In the Coral Sea, the South Pacific, and the Indian Ocean, they appear to mainly feed on euphausiids, while off Brazil, they have been observed feeding on sardines. Individuals caught off Western Australia were found with anchovies ("E. australis") in their stomachs (though these individuals may refer to Omura's whale).
Bryde's whale | Diet
The diet consists of mostly zooplankton, which includes copepods, amphipods, and many other crustaceans. About of food are consumed each day. While foraging, bowheads are solitary or occur in groups of two to 10 or more.
Bowhead whale | Feeding
Bryde's whales feed on a wide variety of fish, planktonic crustaceans, and cephalopods. In the western North Pacific, Bryde's whales caught by Japanese scientific whaling vessels (2000–2007) mainly fed on Japanese anchovy ("Engraulis japonicus", 52%) and various species of euphausiid (36%, including "Euphausia similis", "E. gibboides", "Thysanoessa gregaria", and "Nematoscelis difficilis"), as well as oceanic lightfish ("Vinciguerria nimbaria", nearly 3%), and mackerels ("Scomber" spp., less than 2%). The prey differed by location and season. In coastal areas, euphausiids dominated the diet, comprising 89 and 75% of the diet in May and June, respectively. Further offshore, Japanese anchovy was the dominant species, accounting for nearly 100% of the diet in late summer.
Bryde's whale | Diet
Narwhals have a relatively restricted and specialized diet. Their prey is predominantly composed of Greenland halibut, polar and Arctic cod, cuttlefish, shrimp and armhook squid. Additional items found in stomachs have included wolffish, capelin, skate eggs and sometimes rocks, accidentally ingested when whales feed near the bottom. Due to the lack of well-developed dentition in the mouth, narwhals are believed to feed by swimming towards prey until it is within close range and then sucking it with considerable force into the mouth. It is thought that the beaked whales, which have similarly reduced dentition, also suck up their prey. The distinctive tusk is used to tap and stun small prey, facilitating a catch.
Narwhal | Diet
In breeding grounds, codas are almost entirely produced by adult females. Despite evidence that sperm whales share similar codas, it is still unknown whether sperm whales possess individually specific coda repertoires or whether individuals make codas at different rates. Slow clicks are heard only in the presence of males (it is not certain whether females occasionally make them). Males make a lot of slow clicks in breeding grounds (74% of the time), both near the surface and at depth, which suggests they are primarily mating signals. Outside breeding grounds, slow clicks are rarely heard, and usually near the surface.
Sperm whale | Types of vocalization
Their diet includes cephalopods, fish, and birds. Octopus and arrow squid make up most of their cephalopod diet. Individuals located near their southern range limit have been known to eat penguins as part of their diet. Stomach contents have been analysed and shown to include anchovy, barracuda, flounder, hagfish, lamprey, red cod, school shark, and many other species. Further analysis of otoliths from their scat show that for fish prey species, lantern fish composed the majority of their fish diet, followed by anchovies, pink cod, and hoki. There are different factors that affect their diet, such as season, sex, breeding, surrounding colony, oceanography, and climatic patterns.
Arctocephalus forsteri | Diet
mordax"), sardines ("Sardinops sagax"), Pacific saury ("Cololabis saira"), mackerel ("Scomber japonicus" and "S. australasicus"), jack mackerel ("Trachurus symmetricus") and juvenile rockfish ("Sebastes jordani"). Some of these fish are commercially important. Off central California, they mainly feed on anchovies between June and August, and on krill ("Euphausia pacifica") during September and October. In the Southern Hemisphere, prey species include the copepods "Neocalanus tonsus", "Calanus simillimus", and "Drepanopus pectinatus", as well as the euphausiids "Euphausia superba" and "Euphausia vallentini" and the pelagic amphipod "Themisto gaudichaudii".
Sei whale | Feeding
raschii", and "T. longipes") were the predominant prey around the Aleutian Islands and in the Gulf of Alaska. Prey varied by region in the Kuril Islands area, with euphausiids ("T. longipes", "T. inermis", and "T. raschii") and copepods ("Neocalanus plumchrus" and "N. cristatus") being the main prey in the northern area and Japanese flying squid ("Todarodes pacificus pacificus") and small schooling fish (e.g. Pacific saury, "Cololabis saira"; and Japanese anchovy, "Engraulis japonicus") dominating the diet in the southern area. Of the fin whale stomachs sampled off British Columbia between 1963 and 1967, euphausiids dominated the diet for four of the five years (82.3 to 100% of the diet), while copepods only formed a major portion of the diet in 1965 (35.7%).
Fin whale | Feeding
Battles between sperm whales and giant squid or colossal squid have never been observed by humans; however, white scars are believed to be caused by the large squid. One study published in 2010 collected evidence that suggests that female sperm whales may collaborate when hunting Humboldt squid. Tagging studies have shown that sperm whales hunt upside down at the bottom of their deep dives. It is suggested that the whales can see the squid silhouetted above them against the dim surface light. An older study, examining whales captured by the New Zealand whaling fleet in the Cook Strait region, found a 1.69:1 ratio of squid to fish by weight.
Sperm whale | Diet
Narwhals consume polar cod, Greenland halibut, cuttlefish and pelegaec crustaceans.
Scoresby Sound | Fauna
The diet of Sowerby's beaked whales consists of squid and small fish.
Sowerby's beaked whale | Diet
Based on the stomach contents of stranded whales, these whales primarily feed on pelagic squid, such as "Octopoteuthis deletron"; found within the remains of in the female's stomach. Some unidentified vertebrate parts were also present. Assuming Perrin's beaked whales share the same diet as other beaked whales, they likely consume octopus and fish as well.
Perrin's beaked whale | Diet
The throats of all beaked whales have a bilaterally paired set of grooves that are associated with their unique feeding mechanism, suction feeding. Instead of capturing prey with their teeth, beaked whales suck it into their oral cavity. Suction is aided by the throat grooves, which stretch and expand to accommodate food. Their tongues can move very freely. By suddenly retracting the tongue and distending the gular (throat) floor, pressure immediately drops within the mouth, sucking the prey in with the water. Dietary information is available from stomach contents analyses of stranded beaked whales and from whaling operations. Their preferred diet is primarily deep-water squid, but also benthic and benthopelagic fish and some crustaceans, mostly taken near the sea floor.
Beaked whale | Feeding
Odontocetes feed largely on fish and squid, but a few, like the killer whale, feed on mammals, such as pinnipeds. Males typically mate with multiple females every year, but females only mate every two to three years, making them polygynous. Calves are typically born in the spring and summer, and females bear the responsibility for raising them, but more sociable species rely on the family group to care for calves. Many species, mainly dolphins, are highly sociable, with some pods reaching over a thousand individuals.
Toothed whale | Introduction
A creak is a rapid series of high-frequency clicks that sounds somewhat like a creaky door hinge. It is typically used when homing in on prey. A coda is a short pattern of 3 to 20 clicks that is used in social situations. They were once thought to be a way by which individuals identified themselves, but individuals have been observed producing multiple codas, and the same codas are used by multiple individuals. However, each click contains a physical signature which suggests that clicks can be used to identify individuals. Geographically separate pods exhibit distinct dialects. Large males are generally solitary and rarely produce codas.
Sperm whale | Types of vocalization
minke whales) also prey on schools of fish. Skim-feeders, like bowhead whales, feed upon primarily smaller plankton such as copepods. They feed alone or in small groups. Baleen whales get the water they need from their food, and their kidneys excrete excess salt. The lunge-feeders are the rorquals. To feed, lunge-feeders expand the volume of their jaw to a volume bigger than the original volume of the whale itself. To do this, the mouth inflates, which causes the throat pleats to expand, increasing the amount of water that the mouth can store. Just before they ram the baitball, the jaw swings open at almost a 90° angle and bends which lets in more water.
Baleen whale | Foraging
A coda is a short pattern of 3 to 20 clicks that is used in social situations to identify one another (like a signature whistle), but it is still unknown whether sperm whales possess individually specific coda repertoires or whether individuals make codas at different rates. Slow clicks are heard only in the presence of males (it is not certain whether females occasionally make them). Males make a lot of slow clicks in breeding grounds (74% of the time), both near the surface and at depth, which suggests they are primarily mating signals. Outside breeding grounds, slow clicks are rarely heard, and usually near the surface.
Toothed whale | Vocalisations
Based on the stomach contents of Bryde's whales caught by Japanese pelagic whaling expeditions in the North Pacific in the 1970s, the majority where found to feed on euphausiids (nearly 89%), whereas only about 11% fed on fish. Off South Africa, prey preferences differed between the inshore and offshore forms. The former mainly feed on anchovies ("Engraulis capensis", 83%), maasbankers ("Trachurus trachurus", 36%), and pilchards ("Sardinops ocellata", 33%), with only one (or 3%) being found with euphausiids ("Nyctiphanes capensis"). The latter, however, mainly feed on euphausiids (primarily "Euphausia lucens", but also "E. recurva", "N. capensis", and "Thysanoessa gregaria"), as well as various deep-sea fish (including Mueller's pearlside, "Maurolicus muelleri", and a species of "Lestidium").
Bryde's whale | Diet
The spermaceti at the core of the organ has a higher wax content than the outer areas. The speed of sound in spermaceti is 2,684 m/s (at 40 kHz, 36 °C), making it nearly twice as fast as in the oil in a dolphin's melon. Below the spermaceti organ lies the "junk" which consists of compartments of spermaceti separated by cartilage. It is analogous to the melon found in other toothed whales. The structure of the junk redistributes physical stress across the skull and may have evolved to protect the head during ramming.
Sperm whale | Spermaceti organ and melon
All whales are carnivorous and predatory. Odontocetes, as a whole, mostly feed on fish and cephalopods, and then followed by crustaceans and bivalves. All species are generalist and opportunistic feeders. Mysticetes, as a whole, mostly feed on krill and plankton, followed by crustaceans and other invertebrates. A few are specialists. Examples include the blue whale, which eats almost exclusively krill, the minke whale, which eats mainly schooling fish, the sperm whale, which specialize on squid, and the grey whale which feed on bottom-dwelling invertebrates. The elaborate baleen "teeth" of filter-feeding species, mysticetes, allow them to remove water before they swallow their planktonic food by using the teeth as a sieve.
Whale | Foraging and predation
"Acrophyseter", from the late Miocene, also had teeth in both the upper and lower jaws as well as a short rostrum and an upward curving mandible (lower jaw). These anatomical differences suggest that fossil species may not have necessarily been deep-sea squid eaters such as the modern sperm whale, but that some genera mainly ate fish. "Zygophyseter", dated from the middle to late Miocene and found in southern Italy, had teeth in both jaws and appears to have been adapted to feed on large prey, rather like the modern killer whale (orca). Other fossil sperm whales with adaptations similar to this are collectively known as killer sperm whales.
Sperm whale | Fossil record
The analogous structure in the sperm whale is traditionally called "the junk" because whalers dismissed it as a worthless source of sperm oil. It contains compartments of spermaceti separated by walls of cartilage.
Melon (cetacean) | Sperm whale
Unlike other baleen whales, "Janjucetus" did not use baleen to filter feed, and instead used teeth to catch large prey such as fish and sharks. Its skull morphology seems to be convergent with the modern-day leopard seal ("Hydrurga leptonyx"), and so it may have used a similar grip-and-tear feeding method. However, it is possible that the front teeth interlocked, and the cheek teethed sheared against each other when the mouth was closed, which perhaps allowed the whale to filter feed similar to the modern day crabeater seal ("Lobodon carcinophaga"). This may have been a precursor to the evolution of baleen and associated feeding habits.
Janjucetus | Palaeoecology
Atop the whale's skull is positioned a large complex of organs filled with a liquid mixture of fats and waxes called spermaceti. The purpose of this complex is to generate powerful and focused clicking sounds, which the sperm whale uses for echolocation and communication. The spermaceti organ is like a large barrel of spermaceti. Its surrounding wall, known as the "case", is extremely tough and fibrous. The case can hold within it up to 1,900 litres of spermaceti. It is proportionately larger in males. This oil is a mixture of triglycerides and wax esters. The proportion of wax esters in the spermaceti organ increases with the age of the whale: 38–51% in calves, 58–87% in adult females, and 71–94% in adult males.
Sperm whale | Spermaceti organ and melon
This causes grooves on their throat to expand, increasing the amount of water the mouth can store. They ram a baitball at high speeds in order to feed, but this is only energy-effective when used against a large baitball. Gulp-feeders swim with an open mouth, filling it with water and prey. Prey must occur in sufficient numbers to trigger the whale's interest, be within a certain size range so that the baleen plates can filter it, and be slow enough so that it cannot escape. Otters are the only marine animals that are capable of lifting and turning over rocks, which they often do with their front paws when searching for prey.
Marine mammal | Diet
They feed on zooplankton, benthic algae, and small invertebrates.
Indo-Pacific sergeant | Diet
The fin whale is a filter-feeder, feeding on small schooling fish, squid and crustaceans including copepods and krill. In the North Pacific, they feed on euphausiids in the genera "Euphausia", "Thysanoessa", and "Nyctiphanes", large copepods in the genus "Neocalanus", small schooling fish (e.g. the genera "Engraulis", "Mallotus", "Clupea", and "Theragra"), and squid. Based on stomach content analysis of over 19,500 fin whales caught by the Japanese whaling fleet in the North Pacific from 1952 to 1971, 64.1% contained only krill, 25.5% copepods, 5.0% fish, 3.4% krill and copepods and 1.7% squid. Nemoto (1959) analyzed the stomach contents of about 7500 fin whales caught in the northern North Pacific and Bering Sea from 1952 to 1958, found that they mainly preyed on euphausiids around the Aleutian Islands and in the Gulf of Alaska and schooling fish in the northern Bering Sea and off Kamchatka.
Fin whale | Feeding
The sperm whale's lower jaw is very narrow and underslung. The sperm whale has 18 to 26 teeth on each side of its lower jaw which fit into sockets in the upper jaw. The teeth are cone-shaped and weigh up to each. The teeth are functional, but do not appear to be necessary for capturing or eating squid, as well-fed animals have been found without teeth or even with deformed jaws. One hypothesis is that the teeth are used in aggression between males. Mature males often show scars which seem to be caused by the teeth. Rudimentary teeth are also present in the upper jaw, but these rarely emerge into the mouth.
Sperm whale | Jaws and teeth
They also consume a great quantity of invertebrates, such as shrimp, squid, crabs, clams, octopus, sea snails, bristle worms and other deep-sea species. Belugas feed mainly in winter as their blubber is thickest in later winter and early spring, and thinnest in the fall. Inuit observation has led scientists to believe that belugas do not hunt during migration, at least in Hudson Bay The diet of Alaskan belugas is quite diverse and varies depending on season and migratory behavior. Belugas in the Beaufort Sea mainly feed on staghorn and shorthorn sculpin, walleye pollock, Arctic cod, saffron cod and Pacific sand lance.
Beluga whale | Diet
A 2016 research study used fecal analysis of wild orcas, which spent the summer season in the Salish Sea, for quantitive estimation of prey species. The analysis was consistent with earlier estimates based on surface prey remains. The study found that salmonids comprised over 98.6% of the identified genetic sequences with Chinook and coho salmon species as the most important prey species.
Whale feces | Indicator for diet composition
How did "Aetiocetus" feed, and what did it feed on? Its teeth are reminiscent of the bite-and-swallow strategy of archaeocetes and odontocetes, but they also possessed expanded palates. Modern mysticetes grow their baleen from this expanded palate and use the baleen to trap arthropods and fish in their mouths. This is known as bulk-feeding, in that the whale is not selecting individual prey items and does not use echolocation to find prey, as odontocetes do. Fossil mysticetes with wide, toothless palates are inferred to bulk-feed and the first occurrence of such whales is in the late Oligocene, approximately 4 to 5 million years after the first toothless mysticetes appeared.
Aetiocetus | Feeding strategy
"Scorpaena Cardinalis" has a large mouth used for eating its prey whole. Typically, they wait motionless on the ocean floor for small fish or invertebrates to appear.
Grandfather hapuku | Feeding and Diet
When echolocating, the sperm whale emits a directionally focused beam of broadband clicks. Clicks are generated by forcing air through a pair of phonic lips (also known as "monkey lips" or "museau de singe") at the front end of the nose, just below the blowhole. The sound then travels backwards along the length of the nose through the spermaceti organ. Most of the sound energy is then reflected off the frontal sac at the cranium and into the melon, whose lens-like structure focuses it. Some of the sound will reflect back into the spermaceti organ and back towards the front of the whale's nose, where it will be reflected through the spermaceti organ a third time.
Sperm whale | Mechanism
Belugas play an important role in the structure and function of marine resources in the Arctic Ocean, as they are the most abundant toothed whales in the region. They are opportunistic feeders; their feeding habits depend on their locations and the season. For example, when they are in the Beaufort Sea, they mainly eat Arctic cod ("Boreogadus saida") and the stomachs of belugas caught near Greenland were found to contain rose fish ("Sebastes marinus"), Greenland halibut ("Reinhardtius hippoglossoides") and northern shrimp ("Pandalus borealis"), while in Alaska their staple diet is Pacific salmon ("Oncorhynchus kisutch"). In general, the diets of these cetaceans consist mainly of fish; apart from those previously mentioned, other fish they feed on include capelin ("Mallotus villosus"), smelt, sole, flounder, herring, sculpin and other types of salmon.
Beluga whale | Diet
This has been enabled by unique evolutionary adaptations in their physiology and anatomy. They feed largely on fish and marine invertebrates; but a few, like the killer whale, feed on large mammals and birds, such as penguins and seals. Some baleen whales (mainly gray whales and right whales) are specialised for feeding on benthic creatures. Male cetaceans typically mate with more than one female (polygyny), although the degree of polygyny varies with the species. Cetaceans are not known to have pair bonds. Male cetacean strategies for reproductive success vary between herding females, defending potential mates from other males, or whale song which attracts mates.
Cetacea | Introduction
Miscellaneous fish, squid, and octopus played only a very minor part of the diet in two of the five years (3.6 to 4.8%). Fin whales caught off California between 1959 and 1970 fed on the pelagic euphausiid "Euphausia pacifica" (86% of sampled individuals), the more neritic euphausiid "Thysanoessa spinifera" (9%), and the northern anchovy ("Engraulis mordax") (7%); only trace amounts (<0.5% each) were found of Pacific saury ("C. saira") and juvenile rockfish ("Sebastes jordani"). In the Gulf of California, they have been observed feeding on swarms of the euphausiid "Nyctiphanes simplex".
Fin whale | Feeding
Since the teeth of "Zygophyseter" are large, exhibit wearing not unlike the teeth of modern-day killer whales, and had functionality in both the upper and lower jaws, it was likely a macropredator that fed on large fish, cephalopods, seals, and small cetaceans. The position of the condyloid processes between the jaw and the skull, like in the modern sperm whale, allowed it to open its jaw wider in order to grab large prey. Its apparent similarity to the feeding habits of the killer whale gave it its nickname "killer sperm whale." The conical front teeth may have functioned as a means for gripping onto prey, and the back teeth were used for cutting.
Zygophyseter | Paleoecology
A continuous fat-filled canal transmits received sounds to the inner ear. The source of the air forced through the phonic lips is the right nasal passage. While the left nasal passage opens to the blow hole, the right nasal passage has evolved to supply air to the phonic lips. It is thought that the nostrils of the land-based ancestor of the sperm whale migrated through evolution to their current functions, the left nostril becoming the blowhole and the right nostril becoming the phonic lips. Air that passes through the phonic lips passes into the distal sac, then back down through the left nasal passage.
Sperm whale | Mechanism
Not much is known about its feeding habits but what is known is that they feed mainly on zooplankton and zoobenthos. Cannibalism has been reported among smaller juveniles.
Bay whiff | Diet
All cetaceans are carnivorous and predatory. Toothed whales mostly feed on fish and cephalopods, followed by crustaceans and bivalves. Some may forage with other kinds of animals, such as other species of whales or certain species of pinnipeds. One common feeding method is herding, where a pod squeezes a school of fish into a small volume, known as a bait ball. Individual members then take turns plowing through the ball, feeding on the stunned fish. Coralling is a method where dolphins chase fish into shallow water to catch them more easily. Killer whales and bottlenose dolphins have also been known to drive their prey onto a beach to feed on it.
Marine mammal | Diet
As well as other methods, rorquals obtain prey by lunge-feeding on bait balls. Lunge feeding is an extreme feeding method, where the whale accelerates to a high velocity and then opens its mouth to a large gape angle. This generates the water pressure required to expand its mouth and engulf and filter a huge amount of water and fish. Rorquals have a number of anatomical features that enable them to do this, including bilaterally separate mandibles, throat pleats that can expand to huge size, and a unique sensory organ consisting of a bundle of mechanoreceptors that helps their brains to coordinate the engulfment action.
Rorqual | Feeding habits
In the northern Bering Sea (north of 58°N), their main prey species were capelin ("Mallotus villosus"), Alaska pollock ("Theragra chalcogramma") and Pacific herring ("Clupea pallasii"); they also consumed saffron cod ("Eleginus gracilis"). Arctic krill ("Thysanoessa raschii") was the only species of euphausiid found in the stomachs of fin whales in the northern Bering Sea. Off Kamchatka, they appeared to primarily feed on herring. They also took large quantities of the copepod "Neocalanus cristatus" around the Aleutian Islands and in Olyutorsky Bay off northeast Kamchatka, areas where the species was abundant. Five species of euphausiid ("Euphausia pacifica", "Thysanoessa spinifera", "T. inermis", "T.
Fin whale | Feeding
Like all toothed whales, the pygmy sperm whale hunts prey by echolocation. Sound produced for echolocation by many odontocetes come in the form of high-frequency clicks. The frequencies it uses are mostly ultrasonic, peaking around 125 kHz. The clicks from their echolocation has been recorded to last an average of 600 microseconds. When closing in on prey, the click repetition rate starts at 20 Hz and then begins to rise when nearing the target. The pulse sounds that pygmy sperm whales make for echolocation are generated primarily from the "museau de singe" or monkey's muzzle, which is an anatomical structure located within the whale's skull that produces sound when air passes through its lips.
Pygmy sperm whale | Echolocation
The process could take from several hours to several days, depending on the size and species of the whale, the skill of the crew, and the weather. Blubber was stripped from the entire length of the whale (with other parts of the carcass often harvested for fashion products such as in the case of the Baleen whale), but the primary source of sperm oil was the spermaceti organ and the junk (or "melon"), the organs that serve to focus and modulate the animal's vocalizations. A sperm whale's spermaceti organ may contain as much as 1,900 litres of substance. The matter from these organs was stored in casks to be processed on land; sometimes it was boiled first to prevent it going rancid.
Sperm oil | Processing
Extant kogiids travel in small groups and rarely surface, potentially to avoid predators like orcas. Kogiidae are deep diving whales, believed to dive up to depths of 500 m. Kogiids feed using a technique known as suction feeding, and their diet primarily consists of squid. Pygmy sperm whales are able to eat larger prey than dwarf sperm whales, although their diet as a whole is relatively similar. They have also been observed using echolocation to find their prey, and their hearing places them in the "Very High Frequency" group of cetaceans that can hear well above 100 kHz.
Kogiidae | Behavior and feeding
The head of the bowhead whale comprises a third of its body length, creating an enormous feeding apparatus. Bowhead whales are filter feeders, feeding by swimming forward with mouth wide open. The whale has hundreds of overlapping baleen plates consisting of keratin hanging from each side of the upper jaw. The mouth has a large, upturning lip on the lower jaw that helps to reinforce and hold the baleen plates within the mouth. This also prevents buckling or breakage of the plates from the pressure of the water passing through them as the whale advances. To feed, water is filtered through the fine hairs of keratin of the baleen plates, trapping the prey inside near the tongue where it is then swallowed.
Bowhead whale | Feeding
The dwarf sperm whale is a suction feeder that mainly eats squid, and does this in small pods of typically 1 to 4 members. It is preyed upon by the killer whale ("Orcinus orca") and large sharks such as the great white shark ("Carcharodon carcharius"). When startled, the whale can eject a cloud of red-brown fluid. Most of what is known of the whale comes from beached individuals, as sightings in the ocean are rare. Many of these stranded whales died from parasitic infestations or heart failure. The dwarf sperm whale is hunted in small numbers around Asia. It is most threatened by ingesting, or getting entangled by, marine debris.
Dwarf sperm whale | Introduction
All modern mysticetes are obligate filter feeders, using their baleen to strain small prey items (including small fish, krill, copepods, and zooplankton) from seawater. Despite their carnivorous diet, a 2015 study revealed they house gut flora similar to that of terrestrial herbivores. Different kinds of prey are found in different abundances depending on location, and each type of whale is adapted to a specialized way of foraging. There are two types of feeding behaviors: skim-feeding and lunge-feeding, but some species do both depending on the type and amount of food. Lunge-feeders feed primarily on euphausiids (krill), though some smaller lunge feeders (e.g.
Baleen whale | Foraging
This species eats crustaceans, mollusks, polychaetes, echinoderms and small fishes.
Lethrinus harak | Diet
They feed on fish, squid, and similar oceanic food. Some will follow fishing boats to take scraps, commonly the sooty shearwater; these species also commonly follow whales to feed on fish disturbed by them. Their primary feeding technique is diving, with some species diving to depths of .
Shearwater | Feeding
The sperm whale or cachalot ("Physeter macrocephalus") is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus "Physeter" and one of three extant species in the sperm whale family, along with the pygmy sperm whale and dwarf sperm whale of the genus "Kogia". The sperm whale is a pelagic mammal with a worldwide range, and will migrate seasonally for feeding and breeding. Females and young males live together in groups, while mature males (bulls) live solitary lives outside of the mating season. The females cooperate to protect and nurse their young.
Sperm whale | Introduction
The only time they feed is during the summer months; in the winter, they live solely off fat reserves that they have stored. They are not able to feed in warmer waters such as Hawaii or Mexico because there is no adequate habitat for the fish that they consume. Cooler waters, such as those off Southeast Alaska, are teeming with fish, making this a prime feeding ground for humpback whales during their feeding season.
Bubble-net feeding | Diet
These evolutionary modifications make the spine more flexible but weaker than the spines of terrestrial vertebrates. Like that of other toothed whales, the skull of the sperm whale is asymmetrical so as to aid echolocation. Sound waves that strike the whale from different directions will not be channeled in the same way. Within the basin of the cranium, the openings of the bony narial tubes (from which the nasal passages spring) are skewed towards the left side of the skull.
Sperm whale | Skeleton
The whale shark is an active feeder, targeting concentrations of plankton or fish. It is able to ram filter feed or can gulp in a stationary position. This is in contrast to the passive feeding basking shark, which does not pump water. Instead, it swims to force water across its gills. A juvenile whale shark is estimated to eat 21 kg (46 pounds) of plankton per day.
Whale shark | Diet
Macroraptorials probably competed with the extinct giant shark megalodon for the same food sources. In sperm whales, the supracranial basin holds the spermaceti organ, a series of oil and wax reservoirs which aids in echolocation. Speculatively, the organ may also serve a secondary function, such as vocalizing, acoustic stunning of prey, head-butting between males, ramming into prey, or buoyancy control by increasing or decreasing the temperature of the wax to change the density and weight.
Macroraptorial sperm whale | Paleobiology
Like other toothed whales, the pygmy sperm whale has a "melon", a body of fat and wax in the head that it uses to focus and modulate the sounds it makes. The inner core of the melon has a higher wax content than the outer cortex. The inner core transmits sound more slowly than the outer layer, allowing it to refract sound into a highly directional beam. Behind the melon, separated by a thin membrane, is the spermaceti organ. Both the melon and the spermaceti organ are encased in a thick fibrous coat, resembling a bursa. The whale produces sound by moving air through the right nasal cavity, which includes a valvular structure, or "museau de singe", with a thickened vocal reed, functioning like the vocal cords of humans.
Pygmy sperm whale | Melon
"Diet:" feeds on small sharks, bony fishes, cuttlefish, and crustaceans. "Reproduction:" are ovoviviparous.
Sawback angelshark | Biology
The small teeth of "Diaphorocetus" and the bottleneck-like nature of the rostrum suggest that "Diaphorocetus" employed a feeding strategy intermediate between that of raptorial sperm whales like "Acrophyseter" and "Livyatan" and extant sperm whales.
Diaphorocetus | Paleoecology
When sperm whales socialize, they emit complex patterns of clicks called codas. They will spend much of the time rubbing against each other. Tracking of diving whales suggests that groups engage in herding of prey, similar to bait balls created by other species, though the research needs to be confirmed by tracking the prey.
Sperm whale | Relations within the species
The olfactory system is reduced, suggesting that the sperm whale has a poor sense of taste and smell. By contrast, the auditory system is enlarged. The pyramidal tract is poorly developed, reflecting the reduction of its limbs.
Sperm whale | Brain
They are eaten by the sperm whale in Southeast Asia and Galapagos waters
Ancistrocheirus | Ecology
However, they can also eat small crustaceans that they encounter such as sand crabs and shrimp using their palatal teeth.
Antennatus coccineus | Diet
Whales are fully aquatic, open ocean creatures, and feed, mate, give birth, suckle and raise their young at sea. Whales range in size from the and dwarf sperm whale to the and blue whale, which is the largest known creature that has ever lived. The sperm whale is the largest toothed predator on earth. Several species exhibit sexual dimorphism, in that the females are larger than males. Baleen whales have no teeth; instead they have plates of baleen, a fringe-like structure used to expel water while retaining the krill and plankton which they feed on. They use their throat pleats to expand the mouth to take in huge gulps of water.
Whale | Introduction
Variation in fat density within the melon ultimately contributes to the production of highly directional, ultrasonic sound beams in front of the melon. The combined melon and spermaceti organ system cooperate to focus echolocative sounds. Like in most odontocetes, the known echoreception apparatus used by the pygmy sperm whale is linked to the fat-filled lower mandibles within the skull. However, compositional topography of the pygmy sperm whale's skull indicates abnormally large fatty jowls surrounding the mandibles, suggesting a more intricate echoreception apparatus. Additionally, an unusual cushion structure, of porous and spongy texture, found behind the "museau de singe" has been hypothesized of being a possible "pressure receptor".
Pygmy sperm whale | Echolocation
Killer whales have been known to have paralyzed great white sharks and other sharks and rays by flipping it upside down. Other whales with a blunt snout and reduced dentition rely on suction feeding. Though carnivorous, they house gut flora similar to that of terrestrial herbivores, probably a remnant of their herbivorous ancestry. Baleen whales use their baleen plates to sieve plankton, among others, out of the water; there are two types of methods: lunge-feeding and gulp-feeding. Lunge-feeders expand the volume of their jaw to a volume bigger than the original volume of the whale itself by inflating their mouth.
Marine mammal | Diet
Eats both zooplankton and phytoplankton, certain crustaceans, small fish, and marine snow.
Catostylus tagi | Food
Females give birth every four to 20 years, and care for the calves for more than a decade. A mature sperm whale has few natural predators, although calves and weakened adults are sometimes killed by pods of killer whales (orcas). Mature males average in length but some may reach , with the head representing up to one-third of the animal's length. Plunging to , it is the third deepest diving mammal, exceeded only by the southern elephant seal and Cuvier's beaked whale. The sperm whale uses echolocation and vocalization as loud as 230 decibels (re 1 µPa m) underwater. It has the largest brain on Earth, more than five times heavier than a human's.
Sperm whale | Introduction
Its diet apparently consists of mice. Several specimens from the island are reported to have contained mammal hair, and a white-footed mouse, "Peromyscus dickeyi", is common on the island.
Crotalus atrox tortugensis | Feeding
Bryde's whales use several feeding methods, including skimming the surface, lunging, and bubble nets especially within Gulf of Tosa. Along southeastern coasts of Brazil, whales add twisting movements to lunge feeding.
Bryde's whale | Diet
Unlike living rorquals, "Plesiobalaenoptera" was probably not capable of ram feeding. During ram feeding, modern whales swim toward their prey with open mouths and engulf them in an expandable throat. "Plesiobalaenoptera" has a postcoronoid fossa, or hole in the dentary bone of the lower jaw, which would have made this method of feeding difficult to perform.
Plesiobalaenoptera | Paleobiology
The blue whale diet consists almost exclusively of euphausiids (krill) except off Sri Lanka. Blue whales have been observed near Magdalena Bay (along the western coast of Baja California, Mexico) feeding on pelagic red crabs. However, this has not been confirmed by recent observations or fecal samples. Other accidental or opportunistic consumption of copepods and amphipods have been documented. Blue whales feed on krill at the surface and at depths greater than 328 ft (100 m), following their prey’s diel vertical migration through the water column. The main prey species of krill targeted by blue whales varies among habitat in the different ocean basins.
Blue whale | Diet and feeding
On average, an adult killer whale in the wild may eat about three to four percent of their body weight daily, or as much as 227 kg (500 lb) of food for a six-ton male. Their diet in the wild depends on what is available, and may include fish, walruses, seals, sea lions, penguins, squid, sea turtles, sharks and whales. According to SeaWorld, each of their adult orcas receives 140 to 240 pounds of food per day, primarily herring, capelin, salmon and mackerel. To maintain their alertness, the killer whales are fed at sporadic intervals throughout the day (as would happen in the wild) and feeding is often combined with training and shows.
Captive killer whales | Nutrition and medical care
After killing a sperm whale, the whalers would pull the carcass alongside the ship, cut off the head and pull it on deck. Then, they would cut a hole in it and bail out the matter inside with a bucket. The harvested matter, raw spermaceti, was stored in casks to be processed back on land. A large whale could yield as much as 500 gallons. The spermaceti was boiled and strained of impurities to prevent it from going rancid. On land, the casks were allowed to chill during the winter, causing the spermaceti to congeal into a spongy and viscous mass.
Spermaceti | Spermaceti processing
To prevent stretching the mouth too far, rorquals have a sensory organ located in the middle of the jaw to regulate these functions. Then they must decelerate. This process takes a lot of mechanical work, and is only energy-effective when used against a large baitball. Lunge feeding is more energy intensive than skim-feeding due to the acceleration and deceleration required.
Baleen whale | Foraging
Its diet resembles that of most squid: fish, shrimp, and squid.
Helicocranchia pfefferi | Prey
Narwhals have vestigial teeth other than their tusk, which is present on males and 15% of females and has millions of nerves to sense water temperature, pressure and salinity. A few toothed whales, such as some killer whales, feed on mammals, such as pinnipeds and other whales.
Cetacea | Baleen whales and toothed whales
On average, females and juveniles blow every 12.5 seconds before dives, while large males blow every 17.5 seconds before dives. A sperm whale killed south of Durban, South Africa, after a 1-hour, 50-minute dive was found with two dogfish (Scymnodon sp.), usually found at the sea floor, in its belly. The sperm whale has the longest intestinal system in the world, exceeding 300 m in larger specimens. Similar to ruminants the sperm whale has a four-chambered stomach. The first secretes no gastric juices and has very thick muscular walls to crush the food (since whales cannot chew) and resist the claw and sucker attacks of swallowed squid.
Sperm whale | Biological systems
All whales are carnivorous and predatory. Odontocetes, as a whole, mostly feed on fish and cephalopods, and then followed by crustaceans and bivalves. All species are generalist and opportunistic feeders. Some may forage with other kinds of animals, such as other species of whales or certain species of pinnipeds. One common feeding method is herding, where a pod squeezes a school of fish into a small volume, known as a bait ball. Individual members then take turns plowing through the ball, feeding on the stunned fish. Coralling is a method where dolphins chase fish into shallow water to catch them more easily.
Toothed whale | Foraging and predation
N ratios showed that this squid is a top predator. In turn, they are eaten by the sperm whale.
Taningia danae | Ecology
"Scotoplanes globosa" is a deposit feeder, eating detritus which has sunk to the ocean floor. "S. globosa" has been observed to strongly prefer consuming fresh, recently fallen (approximately within the last 100 days) sediments on the surface of the ocean floor as opposed to older sediments. These freshly-fallen sediments are more nutrient-rich. "Scotoplanes globosa" captures food through its mucous-covered tentacles which surround their mouth. "S. globosa" is also known to congregate around the carcasses of whales which have fallen to the seafloor. Lundsten "et al". (2010) determined that "S. globosa" find deep-sea whale carcasses by smell, as well as other nutrient-rich food sources; the extremely nutrient-rich whale carcasses also attract other deep-sea creatures in large numbers."
Scotoplanes globosa | Diet
Antarctic minke whales feed almost exclusively on euphausiids. In the Southern Ocean, over 90% of individuals fed on Antarctic krill ("Euphausia superba"); "E. crystallorophias" also formed an important part of the diet in some areas, particularly in the relatively shallow waters of Prydz Bay. Rare and incidental items include calanoid copepods, the pelagic amphipod "Themisto gaudichaudii", Antarctic sidestripes ("Pleuragramma antarcticum"), the crocodile icefish "Cryodraco antarcticus", nototheniids, and myctophids. The majority of individuals examined off South Africa had empty stomachs. The few that did have food in their stomachs had all preyed on euphausiids, mainly "Thysanoessa gregaria" and "E. recurva".
Antarctic minke whale | Prey