Have you ever thought what would happen to you if you were swallowed by a whale? We thought about it and here is what we found out!
Let's get it on!
First of all we should make it clear that no whale would do it on purpose. They are intelligent animals and don't try to eat everything that moves, especially if it's out of their menu and physical capacity to consume. The only whale who can be theoretically interested in you as prey is the killer whale but even, it can just barely fit your head in this mouth let alone swallow you whole. For an Orca swallowing you would be similar to you swallowing an entire watermelon. So if an Orca decides to feast on you you are going to be dismembered and your individual parts won’t care much about what happens to them next but in principle again they won't do it because they are clever enough to distinguish you from a seal or a penguin.
So we're left with Baleen Whales. You know the real Wales. Huge and with equally huge gorgeous. We've decided not to spend much time telling you what happens if you get swallowed by a whale without breathing equipment, you'll drown in a few minutes before anything interesting could happen to you and our video will be short and boring. So let's assume you were diving and got swallowed by let's say a blue whale in one piece. You'll probably happy to know that you were not likely be torn apart into pieces as the Blue whale has baleen plates instead of regular teeth. These rows of plates that are covered with hair serve as a filter for the krill from the thousands of litres that the whales swallows in a single gulp. After closing the mouth the whale licks the trap pray pressing it against the top of the mouth of his massive tongue to force the water out. After getting inside a whale's mouth you have a high chance of dying out of the force applied to you when the whale crushes its place when closing its mouth or of the tongue pressure but even if that happens it would not be able to swallow you. A blue whale's gullet is largely a maximum of four inches in diameter they would not even cover the head of a newborn baby regardless of the size of their males most species of whales have throats that are far too small to be able to swallow a large mammal the size of an adult.
In fact even the scary large Whale shark has a relatively small throat, making it impossible for it to consume human. Its diet mainly consists of small fish and fish eggs. The only known whale that has a large enough throat to swallow an adult is the Sperm whale. But this whale species only hunts its prey over 3,500 feet deep in the ocean making even a single human encounter extremely unlikely, and until today there has never been a single recorded incidents of that happening.
So the biggest threat is dying from the pressure applied by the whale if it tries to eat you. But suppose you survive that and you are using diving gear with enough oxygen for a few hours. Another danger you should be worried about is when the whale dives and takes you to a depth where your lungs might collapse. At the moment when an annoyed wales spits you out it kind of dive as deep as 650 feet, in the meanwhile in technical diving to depths below about 200 feet is the maximum safe depth before your body starts experiencing oxygen toxicity. This way even if you manage to make your way out of the whale's mouth it is unlikely that you're going to be able to tell anyone about your adventure.
Published on 10 Jul 2016
