Friday Squid Blogging: Pilot Whales Eat a Lot of Squid
Short-finned pilot wales ( Globicephala macrorhynchus ) eat at lot of squid: To figure out a short-finned pilot whale’s caloric intake, Gough says, the team had to combine data from a variety of sources, including movement data from short-lasting tags, daily feeding rates from satellite tags, body measurements collected via aerial drones, and sifting through the stomachs of unfortunate whales that ended up stranded on land. Once the team pulled all this data together, they estimated that a typical whale will eat between 82 and 202 squid a day. To meet their energy needs, a whale will have to consume [...]