If Arctic Krill Is So Abundant, Why Don't We Eat Them?

Ever wondered why the most abundant wild animal in the ocean never shows up on your plate? Antarctic krill weigh in at an estimated 379 million tonnes, roughly the weight of every human alive. They're packed with protein and omega-3, and the Soviet Union once hauled up over half a million tonnes a year to turn into a canned paste called Okean. So why can't we eat them? In this video, we look at the strange biology behind it. Krill shells are loaded with fluoride, which leaks into the meat after they die. Their digestive enzymes are among the most powerful in the ocean, and once a krill dies, it starts digesting itself within hours. We also cover why whales and Antarctic fish eat krill with no trouble, where most of today's krill catch actually goes (fish farms and krill oil capsules), and the "krill paradox": why krill declined after whaling wiped out their biggest predator. If you like animal science, nature mysteries and food science explained simply, subscribe to Quanta for more videos like this! Timestamps: 0:00 The largest animal swarm on Earth 1:12 The Soviet krill experiment 2:05 The fluoride problem hiding in the shell 4:01 The animal that eats itself 6:24 Where all the krill actually goes 7:58 The krill paradox References: Atkinson et al. (2009), A re-appraisal of the total biomass and annual production of Antarctic krill, Deep-Sea Research I: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/200... Soevik & Braekkan (1979), Fluoride in Antarctic krill and Atlantic krill: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat... Fluoride in food products from Antarctic krill and its hygienic significance (Kiev Scientific Research Institute of Nutritional Hygiene): https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/biblio/6... Fluorapatite in the integument of Antarctic krill (Scientific Reports, 2019): https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159... Sjödahl et al., Separation of proteolytic enzymes from Antarctic krill: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science... Zheng et al. (2022), Autolysis of Antarctic krill during refrigerated storage: https://academic.oup.com/ijfst/articl... Yoshitomi & Nagano, Dietary fluoride from Antarctic krill meal: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22113... Savoca et al. (2021), Baleen whale prey consumption based on high-resolution foraging measurements, Nature: https://cascadiaresearch.org/publicat... Krill: the tiny creature with a huge ocean footprint (China Dialogue Ocean): https://chinadialogueocean.net/en/con...