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Scientists Are Crafting Fake Whale Poop and Dumping It in the Ocean (www.smithsonianmag.com)

submitted 2 days ago by Stern@lemmy.world to c/neat@lemmy.world

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[–] marron12@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Many whale species feed in the depths of the ocean where prey is plentiful, but where the water pressure is immense. At depth, says David King, a chemist at the University of Cambridge in England, many whales find that “their orifices are jammed shut.” So, to properly relieve themselves, they head toward the surface, where their defecations bring a steady flow of nutrients—such as iron, nitrogen and phosphorus—to a part of the sea where they’re typically in short supply.

Interesting. I never thought about how whales poop before. I wonder how critters that live at the bottom of the ocean do it.

[–] Kelly@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I wonder how critters that live at the bottom of the ocean do it.

My guess is that for creatures that live on a certain level their bodies are adapted to that level. Food would be eaten at that pressure, converted to poop at that pressure, and expelled at that pressure. The status quo.

But whales are a bit different because they have to come up for air. At the extreme end Cuvier's beaked whales have been known to go almost 3km down when the pressure is almost 300 times that at the surface. With a pressure gradient like that any poop that carry up with them will want to expand, so I guess they would need to either have enough flexibility to allow for expansion, develop special muscles/structures to actively maintain constant pressure, or just let it out.