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

In evolutionary sense, if there’s free food and no competition for it, then something will evolve to eat it. Even if let’s say this is an inefficient food (which is not the case this time).

There’s huge competition in the large fish eating part of the world and little competition in the krill eaters.

Obviously not all whales eat krill, some do compete in the predator section. But you know if there’s an option to open your mouth and let the krill soup enter, then there will some guys who opt in for that option and slowly evolve that way.