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.
Diet and feeding
Blue whale
Blue whale | Diet and feeding
Their diet consists almost exclusively of euphausiids (krill) Euphausiids (krill). Krill The blue whale diet consists almost exclusively of euphausiids (krill) except off Sri Lanka.
who makes up most of the population of antarctica
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5,000 in the summer and much lesser in winter
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where did it get the name from?
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It is the romanised version of the Greek compound word "antarktiké" meaning "opposite to the Arctic", "opposite to the north"
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what kinds of animals can be seen there?
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Some species of marine animals include penguins, blue whales, orcas, colossal squids and fur seals
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what sort of weather conditions it has?
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It is the coldest of Earth's continents.
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how big is the second marine animal mentioned?
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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.
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how fast is it while swimming?
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Blue whales leisurely traveling rates is 4.6 mph. The maximum speed of a blue whale while being chased or harassed has been reported at 20 to 48 km/h
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what does it feed on?
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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
Blue whales capture krill through lunge feeding, a bulk filter-feeding strategy that involves accelerating toward a prey patch at high speeds, opening the mouth 80–90°, and inverting the tongue, creating a large sac. This allows them to engulf a large volume of krill-laden water, up to 220 tons of water at one time. The water is then squeezed out through their baleen plates with pressure from the ventral pouch and tongue, and the remaining krill are swallowed. Blue whales have been recorded making 180° rolls during lunge-feeding, allowing them to engulf krill patches while inverted; and they rolled while searching for prey between lunges, which has been hypothesized as allowing them to visually process the prey field to find the densest prey patches.
Blue whale | Diet and feeding
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
Squid are important prey for blue sharks, but their diet includes other invertebrates, such as cuttlefish and pelagic octopuses, as well as lobster, shrimp, crab, a large number of bony fishes, small sharks, mammalian carrion and occasional sea birds. Whale and porpoise blubber and meat have been retrieved from the stomachs of captured specimens and they are known to take cod from trawl nets. Sharks have been observed and documented working together as a "pack" to herd prey into a concentrated group from which they can easily feed. Blue sharks may eat tuna, which have been observed taking advantage of the herding behaviour to opportunistically feed on escaping prey.
Blue shark | Feeding
The species is also known to eat the dolphins excrement. As well as being important predators, they are also important prey to many larger species including fishes, birds and dolphins.
Blue runner | Diet and feeding
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
When gray whales feed planktonically, they roll onto their right side while their fluke remains above the surface, or they apply the skimming method seen in other baleen whales (skimming the surface with their mouth open). This skimming behavior mainly seems to be used when gray whales are feeding on crab larvae. Gray whales feed benthically, by diving to the ocean floor and rolling on to their side, (gray whales, like blue whales seem to favor rolling onto their right side) and suck up prey from the sea floor. Gray whales seem to favor feeding planktonically in their feeding grounds, but benthically along their migration route in shallower water.
Gray whale | Feeding
The whale feeds mainly on benthic crustaceans, which it eats by turning on its side and scooping up sediments from the sea floor. This unique feeding selection makes gray whales one of the most strongly reliant on coastal waters among baleen whales. It is classified as a baleen whale and has baleen, or whalebone, which acts like a sieve, to capture small sea animals, including amphipods taken in along with sand, water and other material. Off Vancouver Island, gray whales commonly feed on mysids. When mysids are abundant gray whales are present in fairly large numbers. Despite mysids being a prey of choice, gray whales are opportunistic feeders and can easily switch from feeding planktonically to benthically.
Gray whale | Feeding
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
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
Right whales feed mainly on copepods and other small invertebrates such as krill, pteropods, and larval barnacles, generally by slowly skimming through patches of concentrated prey at or below the ocean surface. Sei whales and basking sharks (sometimes minke whales as well) are in positions as food competitors and are known to feed in the same areas, swimming next to each other, but there have not been any conflicts observed between these species.
North Atlantic right whale | Feeding
Though its diet has been little-studied, algae and small invertebrates make up a large part of it.
Spotted blue-eye | Feeding
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
m. indica" in the Northern Indian Ocean, and "B. m." unnamed subsp. in the waters off Chile. The blue whale diet consists almost exclusively of euphausiids (krill). The blue whale was once abundant in nearly all the oceans on Earth until the end of the 19th century. It was hunted almost to the point of extinction by whaling until the International Whaling Commission banned all hunting of blue whales in 1967. The International Whaling Commission catch database estimates that 382,595 blue whales were caught between 1868 and 1978. The global blue whale population abundance is estimated to be 10,000–25,000, roughly 3–11% of the population size estimated in 1911.
Blue whale | Introduction
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
Mostly, the animal feeds in the northern waters during the summer; and opportunistically feeds during its migration, depending primarily on its extensive fat reserves. Another reason for this opportunistic feeding may be the result of population increases, resulting in the whales taking advantage of whatever prey is available, due to increased competition. Feeding areas during migration seem to include the Gulf of California, Monterey Bay and Big California Sur. Calf gray whales drink of their mothers' 53% fat milk per day. The main feeding habitat of the western Pacific subpopulation is the shallow ( depth) shelf off northeastern Sakhalin Island, particularly off the southern portion of Piltun Lagoon, where the main prey species appear to be amphipods and isopods.
Gray whale | Feeding
To catch prey, they widely open their lower jaw — almost 90° — swim through a swarm gulping, while lowering their tongue so that the head's ventral grooves expand and vastly increase the amount of water taken in. Baleen whales typically eat krill in polar or subpolar waters during summers, but can also take schooling fish, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. All baleen whales except the gray whale feed near the water surface, rarely diving deeper than or for extended periods. Gray whales live in shallow waters feeding primarily on bottom-living organisms such as amphipods.
Filter feeder | Baleen whales
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
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
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
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 blue button is a part of the neustonic food web, which covers the organisms that inhabit the region on or near the surface of the ocean. This is because it is a passive drifter, which means that it relies on water currents and wind to carry it through the ocean. It is preyed on by the sea slug "Glaucus atlanticus" (sea swallow or blue glaucus) and violet sea-snails of the genus "Janthina". Unlike "Velella", which prefers a passive diet, "Porpita" will hunt active crustaceans like crab and fish. It competes with other drifters for food and mainly feeds on copepods and crustacean larvae.
Porpita porpita | Habitat and Feeding
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
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
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
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
The blue runner is a fast-swimming predator which primarily takes small benthic fishes as prey in inshore waters. Studies on the species diet on both side of the Atlantic have shown similar results. A Puerto Rican study found the species supplements its fish dominated diet with crabs, shrimps, copepods and other small crustaceans. More detailed research in Cape Verde found as well as fish, blue runner take shrimp, prawns, lobsters, jellyfish and other small invertebrates. The diet of juveniles is more zooplankton dominated, with young fish predominantly taking cyclopoid and calanoid copepods, and gradually moving to a more fish based diet.
Blue runner | Diet and feeding
The blue blanquillo's primary staple is benthic invertebrates or zooplankton, but they also feed on crustaceans such as crabs and shrimp, molluscs, worms, sea urchins and small fish. Their common predators are reef sharks, and other larger fish; they are also eaten by humans.
Blue blanquillo | Ecology
They have been documented feeding in areas such as Southeast Alaska and off the coast of Antarctica. During the other half of the year humpbacks will spend time in their breeding grounds where they do not eat at all. During their feeding season humpback whales will actively feed for up to twenty-two hours a day. They do this so they can store enough fat reserves to live through their breeding season.
Bubble-net feeding | Introduction
Species such as humpbacks and blue whales are capable of travelling thousands of miles without feeding. Males typically mate with multiple females every year, but females only mate every two to three years. Calves are typically born in the spring and summer months and females bear all the responsibility for raising them. Mothers of some species fast and nurse their young for one to two years.
Whale | Introduction
A whale's baleen plates play the most important role in its filter-feeding process. To feed, a baleen whale opens its mouth widely and scoops in dense shoals of prey (such as krill, copepods, small fish, and sometimes birds that happen to be near the shoals), together with large volumes of water. It then partly shuts its mouth and presses its tongue against its upper jaw, forcing the water to pass out sideways through the baleen, thus sieving out the prey, which it then swallows.
Baleen | Filter feeding
Lunge feeding is an extreme feeding method, where the whale accelerates from below the bait ball 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. Lunge feeding by rorquals, a family of huge baleen whales that includes the blue whale, is said to be the largest biomechanical event on Earth.
Herring | Predators
It eats mostly insects, but it will also eat snails, spiders, seeds, grains, and wild fruits. The blue grosbeak forages mainly on the ground.
Blue grosbeak | Feeding
It feeds on fish (often via kleptoparasitism), penguin chicks and other seabirds, small mammals, eggs and carrion.
Brown skua | Diet
Baird's beaked whale has a diet that consists primarily of deep sea fish and cephalopods found at its preferred dive depths (1000–1777m). On rare occasions, it has been known to eat octopus, lobster, crab, rockfish, herring, starfish, pyrosomes and sea cucumbers. Baird's beaked whales in the southern Sea of Okhotsk diet consists of deep-water gadiform fishes and cephalopods. The species has a mean dive time of about 1 hour, which suggests a long search and handling time. Its generalist feeding strategy may be reflective of limited prey availability at such depths or regions, as mammals become more general feeding strategists as prey diversity decreases.
Berardius | Feeding
The Eastern North Pacific population of blue whales have been well studied. The greatest dive depth reported from tagged blue whales was 315 meters. Their theoretical aerobic dive limit was estimated at 31.2 min, however, the longest dive duration measured was 15.2 minutes. The deepest confirmed dive from a pygmy blue whale was 1,660 ft (506 m).
Blue whale | Diet and feeding
Diet consists primarily of large beetles, cockroaches, large crickets, mantids, and other large arthropods. Occasionally, young mice, birds and other small vertebrates are taken. During feeding, the abdomen (opisthosoma) will often increase its size two-fold.
Singapore blue | Food
The blue duck feeds almost entirely on aquatic invertebrates, with the majority of food items being made up of caddisfly larvae. It may on occasion take berries and the fruits of shrubs.
Blue duck | Diet
The blue petrel feeds predominantly on krill, as well as other crustaceans, fish, and squid. It can dive up to .
Blue petrel | Feeding
The diet consists of water-based and terrestrial insects, flying insects, such as various types of fly, and, to a lesser extent, tiny crustaceans and algae. Field work on Narrabeen Lakes showed that Pacific blue-eyes spent time near the surface looking for dead flying insects, consuming anything below their mouth gape size. This varied from around 2.5 to 3.5 mm, and was proportional to the length of the fish. The Pacific blue-eye forages using vision, and the turbidity of the water affects its ability to find food.
Pacific blue-eye | Feeding
Like all "Cyclura" species, the blue iguana is primarily herbivorous, consuming leaves, flowers, and fruits from over 45 species of plant. The diet is very rarely supplemented with insects, crabs, slugs and fungi.
Blue iguana | 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
Like other mesoplodont whales, it is thought that Deraniyagala's whale feeds mainly on deep-sea squid-and-fish.
Deraniyagala's beaked whale | Diet
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
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
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
Zuni bluehead suckers eat algae and invertebrates off of rocks with the cartilaginous scraper in their mouths.
Catostomus discobolus jarrovii | Diet
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
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
This species feeds primarily on squid and small fish and cephalopods. Blainville's beaked whales do not capture prey by biting. They use suction feeding to capture prey. They create low pressure in the mouth by retracting tongue, and using throat grooves to expand throat volume. This creates a lower pressure in the mouth than the surrounding waters, allowing the whale to suck in water and whole prey. Blainville’s beaked whale shows similar foraging behaviour during the day and night, however the time spent on surface is greater during the night.
Blainville's beaked whale | Foraging
Like right whales in other oceans, North Pacific right whales feed primarily on copepods, mainly the species "Calanus marshallae". They also have been reported off Japan and in the Gulf of Alaska, feeding on copepods of the genus "Neocalanus" with a small quantity of euphausiid larvae, "Euphausia pacifica". Like other right whale species, the North Pacific right whale feeds by skimming water continuously while swimming, in contrast to balaenopterid whales such as the blue and humpback whales which engulf prey in rapid lunges. Right whales do not have pleated throats. Instead they have very large heads and mouths that allows them to swim with their mouths open, the water with the copepods flowing in, then flowing sideways through the right whale's very long, very fine baleen trapping the copepods, and then out over their large lower lips.
North Pacific right whale | Feeding
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
Blue suckers obtain their food off the bottom of rivers and other bodies of freshwater through a mouth in the inferior position. Some organisms that they eat are aquatic insect larvae, crustaceans, plant materials and algae.
Blue sucker | Diet
Adult blue runner living offshore or aggregating around oil and gas platforms tend to have less fish in their diet, foraging extensively on larger zooplankton during the summer months, with larval decapods and stomatopods, hyperiid amphipods, pteropods, and larval and juvenile fishes also taken. Studies around these platforms has found blue runner feed with equal intensity during both day and night, with larger prey such as fish taken preferentially at night, with smaller crustaceans taken during the day. Blue runner are one of a number of carangids known to forage in small schools alongside actively feeding spinner dolphins ("Stenella longirostris"), taking advantage of any scraps of food left by the feeding mammals, or any organisms displaced while they forage.
Blue runner | Diet and feeding
The species also feeds on thyme and wild marjoram oregano as food plants early in its life cycle.
Large blue | Introduction
One whale will typically begin to exhale out of their blowhole beneath the surface at the school of fish to begin the process. More whales will also start to blow bubbles while continuing to circle their prey. They corral the fish into a tight circle while creating a net of bubbles to surround the fish and keep them from escaping. The size of the net created can range from three to thirty meters in diameter. One whale will sound a feeding call, at which point all whales simultaneously swim upwards with mouths open to feed on the trapped fish. As the whales swim up to the surface to feed they can hold up to 15,000 gallons of sea water as they use their baleen plates to strain the water to get the maximum amount of fish they need.
Bubble-net feeding | Method
Mainly feeds on insects, including beetles, Orthoptera, cicadas, caterpillars, as well as spiders. They also occasionally feed upon berries. Birds on Mohéli have been recorded eating fruit. It forages in the middle and upper levels of trees. Feeding often occurs while hanging upside down from its feet. Most food is gleaned from the substrate, and it also sally-gleans from branches and leaves. It usually forages in groups of up to 6 birds n the non-breeding season, and in pairs while nesting. It has also been observed foraging in mixed-species flocks throughout its range.
Blue vanga | 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
These plates are triangular in section with the largest, inward-facing side bearing fine hairs forming a filtering mat. Right whales are slow swimmers with large heads and mouths. Their baleen plates are narrow and very long — up to in bowheads — and accommodated inside the enlarged lower lip which fits onto the bowed upper jaw. As the right whale swims, a front gap between the two rows of baleen plates lets the water in together with the prey, while the baleens filter out the water. Rorquals such as the blue whale, in contrast, have smaller heads, are fast swimmers with short and broad baleen plates.
Filter feeder | Baleen whales
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
Northern subspecies ("B. m. musculus") – Western and Central North Pacific population: Little is known about the migration of this population. In the summer, this population migrates to their feeding grounds southwest of Kamchatka, south of the Aleutian Islands, to the Gulf of Alaska, and to waters off Vancouver Island, Canada. In the winter, they migrate to low-latitude waters, including Hawaii. Acoustic data suggests that some individuals may remain on their feeding grounds year-round. Northern subspecies ("B. m. musculus") – North Atlantic population: Little is known about the winter distribution and migration patterns of this population in the North Atlantic.
Blue whale | Pathways and timing
"C. longimanus" feeds mainly on pelagic cephalopods and bony fish. However, its diet can be far more varied and less selective—it is known to eat threadfins, stingrays, sea turtles, birds, gastropods, crustaceans, and mammalian carrion. The bony fish it feeds on include lancetfish, oarfish, barracuda, jacks, dolphinfish, marlin, tuna, and mackerel. Its feeding methods include biting into groups of fish and swimming through schools of tuna with an open mouth. When feeding with other species, it becomes aggressive. Peter Benchley, author of "Jaws", observed this shark swimming among pilot whales and eating their faeces.
Oceanic whitetip shark | Diet
Blue monkeys eat fruits, figs, insects, leaves, twigs, and flowers. “They are primarily frugivores, with 50% of their diet consisting of fruit, with leaves or insects as their main source of protein, with the rest of the diet being made up of seeds, flowers, and fungi. They rarely eat vertebrates. They eat a variety of plants, but concentrate on a few species, which means their population density is generally dependent on plant species' richness and diversity.”
Blue monkey | Diet
Bubble-net feeding is a unique and complex feeding behavior engaged in by humpback whales ("Megaptera novaeangliae") and Bryde's whales. It is one of the few surface feeding behaviors that humpback whales are known to engage in. This type of feeding is often done in groups. The group size can range from a minimum of two or three whales participating and up to sixty at one time. Whales can also perform a similar method of surface feeding called lunge feeding but this is done solo. Humpback whales are migratory and only eat during half the year. They will typically spend the summer months (May through September) in feeding grounds with cooler waters that they return to every year.
Bubble-net feeding | Introduction
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
Algae form the bulk of the diet of the honey blue-eye, with the remainder made up of insects and other aquatic invertebrates. The honey blue-eye generally forages at the surface of the water.
Honey blue-eye | Feeding
The species is also known to follow large rays, sharks and other foraging fish such as goatfish and wrasse around sandy substrates, waiting to pounce on any disturbed crustaceans or fish which are flushed out by the larger fish.
Bluefin trevally | Diet and feeding
The diet of Sowerby's beaked whales consists of squid and small fish.
Sowerby's beaked whale | Diet
Their diet consists of small organisms found in the algae that they scrape off rocks. They are described as professional sand-suckers, due to their foraging of food amongst the sandy areas that surround the reef. They spend 80 percent of their time searching for food.
Blue parrotfish | Diet
Northern subspecies ("B. m. musculus") – Eastern North Pacific population: This population migrates annually to the U.S. West Coast in the summer and fall to feed. Their documented migration to secondary feeding areas off Oregon, Washington, the Alaska Gyre, and the Aleutian Islands. The northern extent can seasonally overlap with the Central North Pacific population in the Gulf of Alaska. The Eastern North Pacific population migrates in the winter to their breeding grounds in the Gulf of California and the Costa Rica Dome in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Acoustic recordings suggest that some individuals may remain on their feeding grounds and on their breeding grounds year-round.
Blue whale | Pathways and timing
Blue moki feeds at the bottom, on a wide range of benthic invertebrates. It consumes a mouthful of turfing substrate, it then winnows out the prey. Blue moki intestines are often found with ingested sand and mud. This is a result of them feeding on benthic species such as crabs, gastropod, bivalve molluscs, polychaete worms and "Munida gregaria". They also feed on juvenile sea urchins. Juvenile blue moki are located on reefs and eat small crustaceans amongst seaweeds, while adults prey on crabs, other crustaceans, shellfish and worms, which they suck from the sand or mud.
Blue moki | Diet and foraging
Returning to the coast at La Paz, they visit a sea lion colony offshore to collect faeces. Analysis shows they have changed their diet from sardines to bottom-dwelling fish, evidence of overfishing. The presenters then join marine biologists on a research boat, one of whom is Miss Baja California Sur. She and Carwardine dive with a whale shark to take measurements, photos and collect a DNA sample. They spend several days at sea on board the "Horizon" searching for blue whales. They encounter breaching humpback whales, and learn about one predator benefiting from overfishing of sharks, the voracious Humboldt squid.
Last Chance to See (TV series) | 6. "<a href="Blue%20whale">Blue whale</a>"
Northern bottlenose feed mainly on deep water squid, primarily Gonatus sp., and bottom fish, such as Greenland halibut. Foraging dives can last an hour or more at depths reaching over 1000 meters. A small percentage of northern bottlenose whales have been also been observed feeding on redfish, rabbitfish, spiny dogfish, and skate.
Northern bottlenose whale | Feeding
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
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
They eat fruit and seeds, and sometimes grain.
Blue-headed parrot | Food and feeding
It feeds on various insects, small lizards, blossoms, leaves, seeds, and small fruit. Occasional incidents of cannibalism on smaller individuals have been observed.
Baja blue rock lizard | Diet
When feeding, they blow 5–7 times in quick succession, but while traveling or resting will blow once every minute or two. On their terminal (last) dive they arch their back high out of the water, but rarely raise their flukes out of the water. They then dive to depths of up to when feeding or a few hundred feet when resting or traveling. The average feeding dive off California and Baja lasts 6 minutes, with a maximum of 17 minutes; when traveling or resting they usually dive for only a few minutes at a time.
Fin whale | Breathing
The nymph eats a wide variety of aquatic insects, such as mosquito larvae, mayfly larvae, and other aquatic fly larvae.
Boreal bluet | Nymph
There are regular reports of much faster migration speeds and rapid sustained bursts of speeds; notably their swimming speeds were too fast for whalers until the modern era of whaling introduced steam-powered boats and explosive-tipped harpoons. The maximum speed of a blue whale while being chased or harassed has been reported at 20 to 48 km/h (10–25 knots).
Blue whale | Swim speed
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
"Histioteuthis bonnellii" is able to change color. It moves forward by pumping water into his mantle and pushing it out again through the siphon. It is a carnivore and its food consists mainly of fish, crabs, lobsters and molluscs caught with its suckers. These cephalopods are predated by Northern bottlenose whale ("Hyperoodon ampullatus"), Sperm whale ("Physeter macrocephalus"), Blue shark ("Prionace glauca"), Swordfish ("Xiphias gladius") and Cuvier's beaked whale ("Ziphius cavirostris").
Histioteuthis bonnellii | Biology
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
Adult bluefish are strong and aggressive, and live in loose groups. They are fast swimmers that prey on schools of forage fish, and continue attacking them in feeding frenzies even after they appear to have eaten their fill. Depending on area and season, they favor menhaden and other sardine-like fish (Clupeidae), jacks (Scombridae), weakfish (Sciaenidae), grunts (Haemulidae), striped anchovies (Engraulidae), shrimp, and squid. They are cannibalistic and can destroy their own young. Bluefish sometimes chase bait through the surf zone, attacking schools in very shallow water, churning the water like a washing machine. This behavior is sometimes referred to as a "bluefish blitz".
Bluefish | Feeding habits
The blue-winged kookaburra hunts and eats a great variety of animals that live on or close to the ground. In the summer wet season, insects, lizards and frogs make up a higher proportion of their diet, while they eat arthropods such as crayfish, scorpions, and spiders, as well as fish, earthworms, small birds and rodents at other times. They have even been recorded waiting for and snatching insects flushed out by bushfires.
Blue-winged kookaburra | 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
There remain only much smaller concentrations in the Eastern North Pacific (1,647), Central North Pacific (63–133), North Atlantic (1,000–2,000), Antarctic (2,280), New Zealand (718), Northern Indian Ocean (270) and Chile (570-760).
Blue whale | Introduction
Humpback whales have 14 to 35 throat grooves that run from the top of the chin all the way down to the navel. These grooves allow the mouth to expand. When they swallow they stream the water out through their baleen as they ingest the fish. The fish that they ingest are also a source of hydration for them. Bubble netting is an advanced and necessary feeding method developed by humpback whales to feed multiple mouths at one time. Humpback whales are solitary creatures and do not always feed in large groups. They are able to perform a similar method of surface feeding but it is referred to as lunge feeding.
Bubble-net feeding | Method
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
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
Blue lorikeets feed on the nectar and pollen of coconut palms ("Cocos nucifera"), "Guettarda speciosa", "Pemphis acidula", bay cedar ("Suriana maritima"), beach mulberry ("Morinda citrifolia"), "Heliotropium foertherianum", "Scaevola" spp and "Musa". On Rangiroa they fed mostly on coconut flowers during one three week study. They feed silently in small groups, and use their brush-like tongue to lap up nectar and pollen. Where flowers had not fully opened, they will use their bills to open them. After all the flowers on one tree have been fed at, they will move to the next tree, calling as they go. They also feed on insects among leaves and on the forest floor, and on leaf shoots and soft fruits.
Blue lorikeet | Diet and feeding
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
Cephalopods (mainly octopus or squid) and a wide array of crustaceans are also taken in smaller quantities, with shrimps, stomatopods and crabs being the most common. The diet of juveniles in Hawaiian and South African estuaries has also been determined, with these younger fish having a more crustacean based diet than the adults. In Hawaii, crustaceans make up 96% of the gut contents numerically, with tanaids and isopods dominating the diet, while fish only make up 4% numerically. Juveniles less than 170 mm in South African estuaries feed predominantly on mysids and paenid prawns, before shifting to a more fish based diet at larger sizes.
Bluefin trevally | Diet and feeding
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
Its diet consists of ground insects and other small animals.
Blue-naped pitta | Diet and feeding
It has a varied diet, including marine invertebrates such as mussels, crabs, sea urchins, and squid; fish such as capelin, alewife, and smelt; insects; and other birds including their chicks and eggs. It often feeds on carrion and human refuse. Food is plucked from the surface of the shore or sea or is caught by dipping underwater or by shallow plunge-diving. They also feed on clams and mussels by dropping them from a height on hard surfaces such as roads or rocks to break their shells. There is some question about whether this behavior is learned or innate, although it seems to be learned.
American herring gull | Feeding
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
The blue-ringed octopus diet typically consists of small crabs and shrimp. They also tend to take advantage of small injured fish if they can catch them. The blue-ringed octopus pounces on its prey, seizing it with its arms and pulling it towards its mouth. It uses its horny beak to pierce through the tough crab or shrimp exoskeleton, releasing its venom. The venom paralyzes the muscles required for movement, which effectively kills the prey.
Blue-ringed octopus | Feeding
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