Human Next To Blue Whale

Despite their large size, blue whales do not eat people. Actually, they couldn't eat a person no matter how hard they tried to.

Even though these marine mammals are the largest animals globally, several factors prevent them from eating a person.

First of all, blue whales are baleen whales, so they are born with baleen plates instead of teeth.

The baleen plates have thin hairs or bristles fastened to them, which resemble the teeth plant on a comb.

The baleen bristles' purpose is to continue small food such as fish, krill, and various crustaceans from escaping (the aforementioned way the bars on a prison cell keep people from escaping jail) while assuasive water to pass through.

Second, most baleen whales consume small casualty due to their lack of teeth, which would be needed to tear apart most mammals' flesh to brand digestion easier.

Without teeth, they lack the ability to tear apart their prey, so it would likely exist impossible for these baleen whales to eat a human being.

Third, a bluish whale's throat is narrow and ordinarily measures in at less than 1 ft. wide!

Even if they tried to eat a human being whole, they wouldn't be able to fit a person downwardly their throat.

Blue whales won't even attempt to eat pocket-sized marine mammals, let lonely a human.

There are no known recorded events of a blue whale ever eating or consuming a person partially or wholly except in stories and mythology.

In fact, bluish whales' primary diet consists nearly solely of krill (occasionally fish), which are small aquatic shrimp-like invertebrate that typically measures between 1 -2 centimeters long.

Nevertheless, some may grow to exist nearly 6 inches in size.

While a blue whale can eat as many every bit forty million krill per day, they are limited by how many they tin eat at whatever given time due to their small narrow throat.

In fact, some people believe that the only whale with a throat big plenty to effort to eat a human being would be a sperm whale.

However, since sperm whales oft dive to profound levels when hunting for food (3,000 ft. or more), it is doubtful that a sperm whale would ever consume a person.

The boilerplate human being isn't likely to swoop more than xv – 30 ft. underwater without special diving equipment.

Only a handful of records have been recorded of divers reaching depths of over 1,000 ft. with loftier-cease expensive diving equipment designed to bargain with deep-sea diving pressure.

Since most people can only hold their jiff for xxx – xc seconds and the atmospheric pressure level of water can significantly reduce that amount of time a person tin can hold their breath for information technology is unlikely that people will reach the depths required to be eaten or consumed by most whale species that chase for prey at deeper levels of the ocean.

What nigh the blue whale's mouth?

While the throats of baleen whales (such equally the bluish whale and humpback whale) are besides small to swallow a person, there is a take a chance that a person could terminate upwardly caught in a behemothic whale'due south mouth.

In fact, several recent occurrences have been observed with big baleen whales breaking the surface of the water and nearly "swallowing a person."

So what would happen if yous ended up in the oral fissure of a giant whale. We aren't 100 percent sure.

We know that their throat is likewise modest to swallow a human, just information technology may exist possible that you would end upward crushed or seriously injured from the pressure of their oral cavity and/or baleen plates as they shut their mouth shut.

If you lot manage to survive that, so you may cease upward being taken deep below the water's surface where y'all could suffocate and drown.

There is also a chance that the whale may try to push yous out of its oral fissure by opening its oral cavity up and using its tongue to forcefulness you out.

Fortunately, we cannot point to any particular instances of this happening.

Nevertheless, with applied science getting better and meliorate, nosotros are finding occasional reports and videos of near encounters with these amazingly behemothic animals.

What if you could be swallowed up

If you look around long enough, yous'll likely run across stories of whales swallowing people for several hours or days and coming out alive dehydrated or in hysteria, just alive.

However, if we assume a whale could consume a homo, it's likely the private wouldn't survive for more than a few minutes, allow alone several days.

The inability to breathe, compression, and concrete pressure placed on the body lonely is enough to make for a very short existence.

Fifty-fifty if we presume that a person could exhale comfortably inside a whale'southward tum while information technology was underwater, the absence of food and clean drinking h2o would eventually take its toll.

Humans cannot have in big quantities of saltwater as they would suffer from dehydration, kidney and organ failure, muscle cramping, high blood force per unit area, and a host of other life-threatening ailments.

In fact, consuming oceanic saltwater will really lead to a net loss in hydration every bit the large quantities of table salt dehydrate you lot more than the h2o can hydrate the trunk.

If yous combine oxygen deprivation, physical compression from the whale's torso, and a lack of nutrient/cleaning drinking water, you quickly realize the seriousness of being swallowed by a whale and the very high likelihood of not surviving such an event.

Equally stated before, one of the only whales capable of swallowing a man is the massive sperm whale, and their deep-diving nature and offshore lifestyle make it extremely unlikely that they would consume a human.

Stomach content observations

Over the decade, researchers and biologists have performed several observations/dissection'southward on the tum contents of beached marine mammals such as whales.

Most cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) have been establish to consume small fish, krill, crustaceans, cephalopods, and other small prey.

However, a few species of cetacea have shown some interesting findings.

For instance, the killer whale has been institute with some rare, simply interesting types of casualty in its breadbasket.

In fact, some of the most interesting things found in a killer whale's stomach include polar bears, reptiles, marine birds, and moose.

The sperm whale has as well been observed consuming interesting casualty, and at to the lowest degree one observation claims that a fully intact shark was found in the stomach of this large marine mammal.

Seeing equally how sperm whales can swallow 40 ft. long squid whole and are believed to hunt megamouth sharks occasionally, they may besides be able to eat an unabridged shark for dinner.

After all, despite being a toothed whale, the sperm whale has been plant successfully hunting large casualty, even when all of its teeth are missing.