Animals | Why is Blue Whale Poop Pink?
You must have seen blue whales on TV or the internet, blue whales are the largest mammals. But did you know that blue whale poop is not the same as other animals? Blue whale poop is pink in color. How did this happen? Today's audio will tell you about it.
(Blue whale feces, © H. Ryono, Aquarium of the Pacific)
The color of blue whale poop is pink because blue whales mainly eat krill, and krill contains pigment, which is the color of fish scales, and the 'fish' character is replaced by 'stone'.
Krill is similar to the small shrimp we usually eat, it's a very small floating organism, even the largest one is only about five or six centimeters long. You may be surprised that a blue whale of this size eats so small krill, can it fill its stomach?
Actually, the blue whale's mouth is big, but its throat is narrow, it can only swallow one grapefruit-sized food at a time. Krill is very small and easy for the blue whale to swallow.
Moreover, krill like to move in groups, they don't like to be alone, in the sea, krill often gather in groups, sometimes a shrimp group is as thick as 40 meters, about 13 or 14 floors high.
This is convenient for the blue whale. The blue whale simply opens its mouth and swallows a large amount of seawater and krill together. The blue whale can swallow about 35 million, 4 tons of krill at a time!
That's why we often see the blue whale's belly bulging, because it has drunk too much seawater, and the folds of its abdomen have been stretched open.
However, don't worry that the blue whale will swallow seawater and damage its stomach. In fact, there is a thing called baleen in the blue whale's mouth, which is like a comb, to filter the seawater, and only leave krill.
So what does this have to do with the blue whale's poop?
Krill contains a pigment called carotenoid, which doesn't look like it has 'qing' (blue) in its name, but carotenoid is actually red in color. As mentioned before on Soyou Headline, why do shrimp turn red when cooked? This is also related to carotenoid. You can review it.
During the blue whale's digestion of krill, a part of the carotenoid is transferred to the blue whale's poop, so the blue whale's poop will be pink.
Blue whale poop is quite smelly, it is liquid, it floats on the sea at first, then it dissipates, and finally sinks to the bottom of the sea.
Okay, now you know why blue whale poop is pink. Finally, I ask you, besides blue whales, do you know any other whales? Welcome to share with everyone in the comment area.
