Krill
No, this photo is not krill, but it does eat it. We should all know something about krill. To begin, it is the single most important organism of the Antarctic ecosystem. It feeds balleen whales, penguins, seals, and fishes. Its biomass is huge (an estimated 500 billion tonnes). Us humans, we are so clever, we are now literally vacuuming the stuff from the Southern Ocean...to make food supplements, animal food, and fish bail. There seems to be no end to the greed. Krill fisheries seem particularly irritating since there are many other sources for bait, animal food, or supplements. So, apart from the fact that with shrinking pack ice krill survival declines, we have to be concerned about the negative effects of krill fishing on an already fragile ecosystem.
So what is krill anyway? It is a small, shrimp-like swimming crustacean that lives in large numbers, called swarms. They can reac densities of 10,000–30,000 individual animals per cubic metre. They eat phytoplankton.
