Blue Whales: So You Think You’re Fit?

Not so with blue whales. Researchers in Monterey Bay, California, attached a heart monitor to a blue whale and followed it for almost nine hours. They expected the whale’s heart rate to fall as low as 15 beats per minute. They were stunned to see that hundreds of times it dropped as low as 2–8 beats per minute.

The marvel is that blue whales are lunge feeders. With mouths agape, they lunge through clouds of plankton to scoop up enough food to keep their huge bodies alive. Propelling a blue whale’s bulk through the water is a very energy-demanding feat. This racks up a big oxygen debt for the parts of their body deprived of adequate oxygen, with the muscles needed to lunge getting preferential treatment.

It turns out that whales have been programmed with phenomenal control over their heart rate. When whales dive, a lot of oxygenated blood is directed almost exclusively to muscles they specifically need for lunging. At the surface, their heart rate spikes up to 37 to pay off the oxygen debt to the rest of their body.

Whenever another carnivorous design surfaces, it should cause us to think about God’s original plan for creation. Before Adam’s sin brought death into the world, animals didn’t eat one another—not even animal members of plankton. But even in a fallen world, our great God has equipped his creatures to thrive. His brilliant designs for carnivores should remind us of sin’s consequences even as they stir our hearts with awe to worship him.

This article was taken from Answers magazine, July–August, 2020, 19.