Terry Settlemyre, age 11, of Whittier, CA for his question:

How much can a big whale eat?

The blue baleen whale is the biggest animal who ever lived on our planet. He may have a length of 100 feet, a waistline of 45 feet and a weight of 119 tons. Naturally, such an enormous body needs an enormous amount of nourishment. His stomach is roomy enough to hold one ton of food, which is about all he can eat at one time. Whale experts think he consumes between one and two tons of food a day.

The blue whale feeds on floating plankton, sifted from seawater. The largest of these morsels is not much bigger than a shrimp. The large toothed whales gulp down huge chunks of live meat. The 60 foot sperm whale dines mainly on squid and cuttlefish. He can devour several hundred pounds of food a day. The 30 foot killer whale has a huge appetite. It is claimed that he can swallow a porpoise in one gulp and a walrus in two gulps.