The dead whale appeared in Ningbo, obviously smelly, and has drifted away, will it become a whale fall or a whale explosion?

According to media reports, on the morning of April 28, a fishing boat in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province found a dead body in the waters east of Shipu, Ningbo.

Judging from its size and the sea area where it appeared, it is very similar to the 19-meter-long sperm whale that we just successfully rescued some time ago, so many people speculate that the two whales may be the same.

The sperm whale that was stranded and rescued last time has human markings on its body, but the remains of the whale are still drifting at sea and have not yet been found.

However, sperm whales are deep-sea creatures, and the probability of death after stranding is very high, because sperm whales can weigh more than 20 tons. Once they are stranded, they will lose the buoyancy of seawater. At this time, the weight of the whole body will press on the bones and internal organs, and the rescue is very difficult. , Even if the rescue is successful, it is necessary to ensure that there is no stranding or death again after a few days, and the sperm whale is truly out of danger.

For us, if the rescued sperm whale finally died, of course we would be very sad; for the sperm whale, it is also unfortunate news to die after getting out of the stranding.

But for the ocean, the death of sperm whales is not entirely bad news. Their deaths can help other creatures survive better. So what is going on?

whale fall

Under normal circumstances, after whales die, they will float on the sea because they have more body fat and their body density is smaller than that of sea water. For example, the dead sperm whale found by Taizhou ships in Ningbo is floating on the surface of the sea.

At this time, they will attract the attention of scavengers, such as scavenger sharks, which will tear apart the whale's skin with sharp teeth and eat most of the body tissue and internal organs of the whale.

Whales are huge, and sperm whales are the largest among whales. Adults can reach more than 20 tons, or even 50 tons. Such a huge body size can support the survival of many scavengers. The whole process can last for 4-24 months. For a long time, this is only the first stage of the whale fall, also known as the "mobile scavenger stage".

As the scavengers graze, the whales lose fat and become denser, at which point their remains sink into the ocean.

If the whale falls into the deep sea, for the deep-sea creatures, the whale fall is paradise. This is because sunlight cannot penetrate the seawater and reach the deep sea, so there is a lack of photosynthesis-dependent plants and phytoplankton in the deep sea, and energy is very scarce.

The whale fall contains a lot of fleshy debris and protein particles, which will attract invertebrates to breed here. They use the whale fall as a place to avoid natural enemies, and on the other hand, they will use the whale fall as a source of food. This process This is the second stage of the whale fall, also known as the "opportunist stage".

When all the available debris of the whale fall is exhausted, it is the home of microorganisms. The anaerobic bacteria living here will continue to decompose the whale fall and produce hydrogen sulfide. And hydrogen sulfide will be used by other marine organisms as a source of energy.

Therefore, although a whale dies, its remains support a large number of marine creatures, especially deep-sea creatures. In places where there is no whale fall, deep-sea creatures are pitiful, and around the whale fall, life is thriving. Therefore, Jingluo is also called "three oases of deep-sea life" together with "undersea hot spring mouth" and "undersea cold spring mouth". Therefore, there is another saying that a whale falls for all things.

Some people may say that sharks die in the ocean and nourish everything like whales fall. In fact, this is not the case, because most sharks are not large in size, and their remains will be decomposed in the ocean for a long time. It is difficult to be like a whale fall. "Provides energy for hundreds of years.

whale explosion

If the dead whale stranded on the beach, the situation would be very different.

Due to the lack of scavengers, the remains of whales will not be rapidly decomposed, and because the thick fat in the whales has a good thermal insulation effect, the body temperature will not drop to the external level all at once.

There are many microorganisms living in the whale's intestine. When the whale dies, all the systems in the body stop working, and the microorganisms will begin to decompose the whale's body, and a large amount of gas will be produced during the decomposition process.

Whale skin has a very strong pressure-bearing capacity. These gases are not immediately discharged from the body, but accumulated inside. In this way, there are more and more gases inside, and the air pressure is getting higher and higher, and whales may explode at any time.

Once a large amount of gas has accumulated in the whale's body, it cannot rashly approach at this time, nor can it actively pierce the whale, because this will detonate the whale explosion and make the whale explosion happen earlier.

If the whale is allowed to continue to ferment, the whale explosion will still occur when the air pressure in the whale's body is too high for the skin to bear.

Although the whale explosion is not very lethal, it is smelly and disgusting. The corpse will also be scattered to the surrounding area due to the force of the whale explosion. If you are watching nearby, you may be splashed with whale body tissue, which is very smelly.

Therefore, once a whale is found stranded, if it cannot be rescued, it must be dealt with as soon as possible after the death of the whale to avoid the occurrence of whale explosion.

The summary here is that if a whale dies in the ocean and is eaten by marine life, it is more likely to become a whale fall; if it is stranded and the skin surface is intact, as the fermentation continues, whale explosion is more likely.

Contribution of the whale alive

While whale falls make a great contribution to the ocean, so do whales when they are alive.

Sperm whales will feed in the deep sea and return to the shallow sea to defecate, which will bring the energy of the deep sea into the shallow sea, thereby realizing the transfer of energy from the bottom of the ocean to the upper layer.

Not only that, whales often migrate long distances, and they will swim from nutrient-rich waters to energy-poor waters to reproduce, which can promote nutrient exchanges between different sea areas.

Moreover, feces are in the form of flying flocs and contain more nutrients, which can provide sufficient impact on local phytoplankton, which is equivalent to the "chemical fertilizer" of phytoplankton. Their existence can help phytoplankton survive better.

Phytoplankton can absorb carbon dioxide, release oxygen, and delay global warming. A large part of the oxygen that humans breathe on the earth is also attributed to marine phytoplankton.

Moreover, phytoplankton is also the cornerstone of the marine ecological chain. The more prosperous the phytoplankton, the more local marine life, so it can be seen that the better the whales live, the more vibrant the ocean.

Moreover, whales are huge and can be decades or even hundreds of years old. When they are alive, their body is a large carbon sequestration machine, which is also conducive to slowing global warming.

Therefore, whether whales are dead or alive, they have contributed a lot to the entire ocean and even the earth. It is necessary for us to protect them and make them survive better.