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posted by janrinok on Monday January 24 2022, @02:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the my,-what-a-big-mouth-you-have dept.

Original source is paywalled: The New York Times. Text extracted from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fin-whale-eat-choke-baleen-oral-plug-muscle-fat.

Scientists have discovered a new anatomical structure that allows lunge-feeding whales to take in massive amounts of water without choking.

To capture prey, humpbacks, minkes and other whales use a tactic called lunge feeding. They accelerate — their mouths open to nearly 90 degrees — and engulf a volume of water large enough to fill their entire bodies. "It's crazy. Imagine putting an entire human inside your mouth," said Kelsey Gil, a zoologist studying whale physiology at the University of British Columbia.

As water floods into the whale's mouth, its throat pouch expands, leaving the whale looking like a bloated tadpole. After about a minute, the throat pouch deflates as most of the water leaves the whale's mouth, released back into the ocean. Small fish and krill are captured in the whale's baleen — plates of keratin that hang from the top of the whale's mouth resembling bristles on a toothbrush — and are swallowed into the whale's stomach.

Scientists didn't know how these whales avoided choking on prey-filled water and flooding their respiratory tracts during a lunge feeding event. Now Dr. Gil and colleagues have discovered a large, bulbous structure that they've termed the "oral plug" — a structure never before described in any other animal — that they think makes lunge feeding possible.

[...] By physically manipulating and dissecting the mass of muscle and tissue — the oral plug — the researchers determined that when the animal is at rest, the plug blocks off the whale's pharynx, a tube-shaped structure that leads to both the respiratory and digestive tracts, just like in other mammals including humans. When a whale lunges, the oral plug protects both tracts from being flooded by the water and the critters that the animal has taken in.

For the whale to ingest food, that oral plug needs to move. Again through manipulation and dissection, the researchers figured out that when the animal was ready to swallow its latest meal, the oral plug shifted upward to protect the upper respiratory tract, including the nasal cavities and blowhole. At the same time, the larynx — the structure in the pharynx that guards the entrance to the lungs — closes up and shifts downward, sealing off the lower respiratory tract. In other words, during swallowing, the pharynx only leads to the digestive tract and the upper and lower airways are protected.

Journal Reference:
Kelsey N. Gil, A. Wayne Vogl, Robert E. Shadwick. A 'trapdoor' made of muscle and fat helps fin whales eat without choking, Current Biology. Published online January 20, 2022. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.12.040)


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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @03:30PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @03:30PM (#1215264)

    always swallow

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @06:36PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @06:36PM (#1215325)

      Depends on how full they are from their last meal. You wouldn't want to overdo it on the calories.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @06:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @06:09PM (#1215313)

    They're not Aaron Rodgers.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @06:15PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @06:15PM (#1215314)

    I tihnk the bitcoin whales can and do choke. Especially over the last month.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @09:09PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @09:09PM (#1215371)

      It's a buying opportunity, moron.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @03:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @03:23AM (#1215445)

      Are you sure they didn't drown

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @06:33PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @06:33PM (#1215324)

    Wish I had one of those so food or drink never went down the wrong pipe.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @04:00AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @04:00AM (#1215462)

      The ass pipe?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @06:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @06:18AM (#1215499)

        That is only how they force feed prisoners in the illegal gulags in Cuba.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @07:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @07:37PM (#1215342)

    They can still get a Titleist stuck in the blowhole.

  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Snotnose on Monday January 24 2022, @08:09PM

    by Snotnose (1623) on Monday January 24 2022, @08:09PM (#1215357)

    It's because the whales have been practicing on my dick.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @10:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @10:42PM (#1215386)

    > Dr. Gil
    Nominative determinism at work :)

  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @04:06AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @04:06AM (#1215465)

    I'm disappointed that only the first 30 comments are dick jokes.

    Come on guys - swallows, chokes, blow holes??? The raw material is golden. Take a hard look at yourselves.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @08:09AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @08:09AM (#1215528)

      How did you manage to touché a whole thread?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @02:58PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25 2022, @02:58PM (#1215580)

      There would have been more, but an oral plug got in the way!

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday January 25 2022, @06:11AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday January 25 2022, @06:11AM (#1215494) Journal

    Or, just search for videos of Right Whales breeding. Prehensile penii. But that is not the issue here. We have a legitimate scientific advance, and this the best Soylentils can do? OK? Haters gonna hate, Whalers gonna Melville, and lunge-feeders gonna feed. And then vacation in Hawaii.

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