Why do whales eat a huge amount of small fishes instead of a few large ones?

Question

I remember watching a documentary once and learned that whales need to eat tonnes (literally) of krill per day to survive. I don’t understand why this is better than eating small amounts of large fishes instead.

In: 298

Answer 1

Nature is a pyramid scheme. There is much more mass of small fish then large fish, so finding and eating many small fish is easier to accomplish than finding and eating an equivalent of large fish. Sperm whales are a type that hunt large prey in deep waters, so they cornered that market and other whales would have to directly compete with them for a limited food source. So it makes sense only a few go for large things.