Whale Poop Can Save the Earth!

Whales are in the gross news today. Yes! First, a scientist named Trish Lavery has found that sperm whales are doing all of us a big favor when they poop. Let’s let her explain it:

“Sperm whale poo is rich in iron, which stimulates phytoplankton to grow and trap carbon. When the phytoplankton die, the trapped carbon sinks to the deep ocean. By this process, sperm whales in the Southern Ocean remove approximately 400,000 tons of carbon from our atmosphere each year.” 

That means that whale poop is good for global warming! Another cool thing about whale poop is that it feeds plankton. Since fish eat plankton, whale poop helps fish! But as whaling kills more whales, more carbon gets left in our atmosphere…and that’s a bad thing for global warming. 

Dr. Lavery draws her conclusion: “It makes a compelling case for an immediate ban on whaling.”

Click "Read more" to read more. (Duh!)


Also, I just read an article about bone-boring worms. These are worms that burrow into bone…whale-bone! When a whale dies in the ocean, its body sinks to the ocean floor and creates a big eco-system for scavengers to feed upon. 

And along with the crabs, slugs,  and snails comes a red worm…a bone-boring worm! These boring worms are about as big as a pencil and eat right through the whalebone and into the marrow.

But since the bone-boring worms are polite enough to wait until the whale is dead before drilling into it, they're okay by me!

Dr. Lavery’s findings appear in the

Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences.

More on bone-boring worms from Creature Cast.