Here is the article Larry Driscoll sent. Now it is readable.
Washington: Humpback whales, minke whales, and other whales use a tactic called
orchid feeding to catch their prey. They accelerate (the mouth opens almost 90
degrees) and swallow enough water to fill the whole body.“It’s crazy. Imagine
putting the whole human in your mouth,” said Kelsey Gil, a zoologist studying
whale physiology at the University of British Columbia.A humpback whale emerges
while rushing through the small fish Menharden in the Atlantic Ocean.
Scientists have discovered a new anatomy that allows rushing whales to ingest
large amounts of water without choking.credit:Dave Sanders / New York TimesWhen
the whale’s mouth overflows, the pouch of the throat swells and the whale looks
like a bloated tadpole. After about a minute, when most of the water comes out
of the whale’s mouth and is released into the sea, the throat bag contracts.
Small fish and krill are caught by a whale’s whiskers (a plate of keratin
hanging from the top of the whale’s mouth that resembles toothbrush bristles)
and swallowed by the whale’s stomach.Scientists did not know how these whales
avoided choking prey-filled water or flooding the airways during lunge feeding
events. Now Gil et al. Have discovered a large bulbous structure called an
“oral plug”. This is a structure that has never been described in other animals
and is believed to allow rush feeding.Their results were published on Thursday
Current biology..Lunge-feeding whales, also known as fin whales, include the
two largest animals on the planet, the fin whale and the fin whale. Fin whales
ingest thousands of kilograms of food daily by feeding them in a rush. This is
a feeding strategy that can maintain a huge physique that can exceed 135,000
kilograms for blue whales.To determine how these whales are safely choking (and
not choking) their food, Gil and colleagues analyzed dead fin whales. When they
opened the mouth of the first whale, they were confused by what they
saw.“Looking at the mirror in the back of my throat, it’s just a big empty
space,” Gil said. “But when I looked behind this whale’s mouth, there was a
space that had just been blocked with tissue, saying,’It doesn’t make sense.
It’s where food has to go through. Why is it blocked that way?” Is it? “By
physically manipulating and dissecting a mass of muscle or tissue (oral plug),
researchers have decided that the plug blocks the whale’s pharynx when the
animal is resting. This is a tubular structure that connects to both the
respiratory and digestive tracts. Like other mammals, including humans. When
the whale rushes, an oral plug protects both tubes from flooding by water and
animal-introduced creatures.In order for whales to eat food, their outlets need
to work. Through manipulation and dissection again, researchers realized that
when the animal was ready to swallow the latest diet, the oral plug was shifted
upwards to protect the upper airway, including the nasal passages and
fumaroles. At the same time, the larynx (the structure of the pharynx that
protects the entrance to the lungs) closes and moves down, sealing the lower
respiratory tract. In other words, during swallowing, the pharynx only leads to
the gastrointestinal tract, protecting the upper and lower airways.Scientists
discover why whales don’t chokeSource link Scientists discover why whales don’t
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