Hello Angela:
Well, it's a little known fact that there are several whale outhouses
constructed next to sulphur vents in very deep water on the mid-Atlantic
Ridge; but since the trip out there from places where whales live (like
Cape Cod) is a very long one, whales have evolved to "hold it" for
prolonged periods...
OK, so I'm making this up. Truth is, whales pee and poop wherever they
happen to be at the time, in the water. Whale poop varies in color
depending on the animal's diet, and you can actually tell what a whale
has been eating from this. Any whale feeding on krill will have bright
red poop; if the animal has ben eating fish, the defecation is usually
brown.
Believe it or not (and after my first paragraph above you're probably
disinclined to to, but this is true, I swear!) you can actually tell a
lot about whales from analysis of their poop. My friend Dr Roz Rolland
collects right whale poop and extracts hormones from it, from which she
can tell whether the animal is sexually mature and (if female) whether
it's pregnant or not. It's pretty cool, though Roz probably isn't wild
about the fact that everyone now refers to her as the Poop Queen.
Phil Clapham
> angela wrote:
>
> hi me & some friends were talking about whales the other day and we
> came to the question where do whales go to the ''toilet'' we have
> searched the web but have had trouble finding the answer please if you
> could help e-mail me the answer to wiggle_wiggle69@hotmail.com
> thank you.
--Phillip J. Clapham, Ph.D. Large Whale Biology Program Northeast Fisheries Science Center 166 Water Street Woods Hole, MA 02543, U.S.A.
tel. 508 495-2316 fax 508 495-2066 email: pclapham@whsun1.wh.whoi.edu
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