I understand, generally, *how* they got that big but not *why*. What was the evolutionary advantage to their massive size? Is there one? Or are they just big for the sake of being big?
In: Biology
Blue whales got so big because being big helps them eat better. Their food, krill, is tiny and spread out. Bigger whales can take bigger gulps of water and filter out more krill at once. This means they get more food for the effort they put in. Over a long time, the bigger whales were more successful and had more babies, who were also big. So, over millions of years, they gradually evolved to be enormous, not to fight off enemies, but simply to eat more efficiently.
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