The energetics of blue whale lunge feeding are modelled
Work combining kinematic data from digital tags with unsteady hydrodynamic models produces an energy budget for individual lunges and foraging dives. Dives of about 3 to 15 minutes carry as many as six lunges; the energy returned by a mouthful of dense krill is very large relative to the cost, but the efficiency depends steeply on krill density. The result explains why the migration exists at all: a blue whale cannot make a living in ordinary water.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Rorqual Lunge Feeding · ecological phenomenon · Wherever dense euphausiid patches form · not located
- Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) · species · Global ocean, all major basins · not located
- Seasonal Krill Aggregation · ecological phenomenon · High-latitude and eastern-boundary upwelling systems · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Mechanics, hydrodynamics and energetics of blue whale lunge feeding: efficiency dependence on krill density
Kinematic tag data combined with unsteady hydrodynamic models gives an energy budget for blue whale lunges and foraging dives: dives lasted between about 3.1 and 15.2 minutes with up to six lunges each, and foraging efficiency exceeds that of other marine mammals by close to an order of magnitude, but only where lunges target extremely high krill densities. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary of the paper and of institutional reporting on it; the per-mouthful energy figure and the 90:1 return ratio come from that secondary reporting rather than from the paper.
Journal of Experimental Biology (The Company of Biologists); Goldbogen and colleagues · 2011 · Partly verified
Journal of Experimental Biology 214(1), from p.131; https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/214/1/131/10226/
Recorded on Rorqual Lunge Feeding
- The longest blue whale on record is measured at South Georgia
- The heaviest blue whale on record is weighed
- The IWC protects blue whales from commercial hunting
- The commercial whaling moratorium takes effect
- The energetics of blue whale lunge feeding are modelled
- Baleen whale consumption is re-measured, and the krill paradox sharpens
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- Baleen whale consumption is re-measured, and the krill paradox sharpens · 2021-11
- The commercial whaling moratorium takes effect · 1986 (coastal); 1985/86 pelagic season
- The IWC protects blue whales from commercial hunting · 1966
- The heaviest blue whale on record is weighed · 1947-03-20
- The longest blue whale on record is measured at South Georgia · 1909 or c.1912 (sources disagree)