
Stanford researchers reveal details about the feeding habits of whales - CapitalistCartr
http://news.stanford.edu/2016/09/22/unique-feeding-habits-whales-come-light/
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M_Grey
_" When these animals dive down to 300 meters, holding their breath for 12
minutes or more, they had better be sure it’s worth the cost..."_

I wonder what a 300 meter dive "costs" in terms of energy for such a massive
animal, and how amazing it is that they can manage 12 minutes on one breath.

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nickff
You might be able to estimate the amount of energy by using the volume of
their lungs to find the amount of oxygen they have, then use this to calculate
how much 'sugar' can be reacted with it, thus giving you the total usable
energy.You may even be able to compensate for the amount of residual oxygen
left in the lungs. This would of course have some significant error, as they
probably leave some reserve, and have less blood oxygen at the end of the dive
than at the beginning.

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eutectic
For a blue whale I get around 5000kcal; I'm not sure if this is a little or a
lot.

Of course, with the various inefficiencies involved the whale would need to
eat a few times more than this to break even.

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CapitalistCartr
I eat about 2600-3000 per _day_. So, for a human, 5000 in 12 minutes would be
astounding.

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eutectic
You may have noticed that whales are big.

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euyyn
Any detail interesting enough to include in the title? :)

