Dolphins need to eat up to 25 kilograms of fish every day

Bottlenose dolphins burn as many as 33,000 calories—equivalent to 25 kilograms of fish—every day, BBC News reports. Scientists captured dolphins living in Sarasota Bay off the coast of Florida and measured their metabolic rates before releasing them again. They then used these measurements to estimate how much energy the animals require in the wild. It is important to know the basic physiological needs of marine mammals so that we can predict how they will be affected by climate change, the researchers write in Royal Society Open Science . This information could also be used when setting fishing quotas, to ensure that dolphins have enough prey—the equivalent of 60 portions of salmon every day.