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Re: Tears and 'salt excre
Sean Stinson (sstinson@uoguelph.ca)
8 Nov 1995 23:23:53 GMT
J. Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com) wrote:
: Bb> >What do whales drink? Do they not drink for weeks at a time? Or
: Bb> >maybe they swim up to rivers and then go upstream until there's
: Bb> >no salt left in the river, drink and swim back to the ocean.
: Bb> >Where do they find water to drink?
Who wrote this? Was this a joke?
: Actually, I pointed out that marine mammals and birds *can drink*
: seawater and, unlike humans, excrete enough salt to make it
: worthwhile. <snip> and leave them with a balance of
: freshwater.
Sean replied,
I think it is somewhat worthwhile to point out
that the physiological composition of sea mammals body fluids
is quite different from their terrestrial and freshwater
counterparts. While it is still necessary to eliminate
ions, their physiological ion composition is almost the same
as seawater, thus there is very little need to eliminate
sodium, potassium, chloride,..etc in the same way as we
would or say a nice piece of trout.
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