Nov 21, 2007

Eat Plankton

Check out the looming mouth of the basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus). This behemoth is the world's second largest fish (second only to the whale shark). Despite its endangered status, it is found in all of the world's temperate oceans.

That mouth balloons open so that it might dine on whatever floats into it, which is typically a wide variety of plankton.

There are a lot of athletes out there who try to bulk up using steroids, HCG, etc. I have a tip for you who are so inclined to cheat: take a hint from the animal world, especially from the largest pelagics and marine mammals. Eat plankton. Try cruising the blue waters of the ocean with your mouth wide open for a few months and see what happens.

Photo source: Knuttz

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How large would a human be in comparison? 0_-

Arachnophile said...

Okay, I've tried to reply to this like, 3 times in the last day or so. Anyone else having trouble after that last VISTA update? *CURSES MICROSOFT*

Anyhoo. I LOVE these beasties. They are a favoritn misidentified sea monster. Check out any cryptobio site and you'll find ccarcasses that were suspected dinosaurs or othe sea monsters that turned out to be Baskers.

As for size, I'll try to embed this picture of some people diving with one:

basker with a diver


If that doesn't work, just google-image them, there's a tone of pics there.

Arachnophile said...

OMG!! I thought I proof read that. UGH

Anonymous said...

These guys are some of my favorites!!!

Although, I have to say, I've never been quite as afraid of great white sharks as I have been of these guys. They swim in relatively shallow water (4ft.) and have a huge mouth!!! I get this uneasy feeling that I'm going to be swimming underwater and just get swallowed by one of these guys, even though they're not "after me."

; )