• Question: Can you get eaten by a whale and survive????????!!!!

    Asked by lukefleming to Alex, Amy, Andy, Georgia, Ollie on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ollie Russell

      Ollie Russell answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Do you mean a blue whale? If so its unlikely that it would eat you as although this is the biggest animal in the world, it can only swallow something the same size as a grapefruit, so you wouldnt fit down its throat.

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      I don’t think so.

      Hi Luke. Sperm whales could potentially swallow a person – they live on squid other large sea creatures. They’d be unlikely to come across people in their natural environment as they feed deep in the ocean. Even if they did find a human down there, I’d find it hard to believe they could survive being eaten. Which isn’t to say it’s impossible…

      There were reports in the late 1800s of this happening to a sailor called James Bartley, but the consensus among people who have researched this in more detail is that it probably didn’t happen. Here’s a page with more information:

      http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2294/have-any-real-life-jonahs-been-swallowed-by-whales-and-lived

      I always find it useful to check Cecil or Snopes to see whether there’s any truth in these implausible tales. Sometimes there is!

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