Want to Know How a Whale Eats? Think Parachutes

This is a great article at Discover magazine about how large whales, Fin and Blue specifically, manage to feed their enormous bodies. Here is an excerpt:

"In order to make lunge-feeding work, you have to have a really big mouth to capture enough water in one gulp. But in order to have a big mouth, you need a big body. And in order to keep that big body running, you need to get a lot of food. And in the very act of getting that food–diving deep, lunging open-mouthed, and then pushing a school-bus-sized volume of water forwards–requires a lot of energy on its own."

Thanks to MR for the pointer.

Want to Know How a Whale Eats? Think Parachutes