Photo: Caroline Armon
Do
you see the mud circle? It is the muddy area on the water's surface
left by a
whale that is "snacking." The lagoon's bottom sediment has
very little whale food. But the water is rich in plankton and algae.
One type of algae is like cotton in texture. Observer Dr. Swartz suggests
this gets stuck on the whales' baleen, so maybe they are taking mouthfuls
of sand
and sediment to clean their baleen! (Whales gulp mouthfuls of sand
and sediment from the bottom and squirt it out through their baleen.
Any
food gets trapped and swallowed.)
