Fishing limits
Question: What is the limiting factor for the size of a fish? Does the same
factor apply to mammals such as whales? If so, why is it that the largest known
fish is smaller than the largest whale?
Answer: The most likely reason why whales are larger than the largest fish,
is the way they take up oxygen to fuel their metabolism. Fish have to absorb
oxygen from water via their gills while whales absorb air via their lungs. As M.
Jobling points out in Dissolved Oxygen, Fish Bioenergetics, Chapter 15,
pp 231 (1994).
Seawater at 10…
