By Stephen Beech

Whales can eat more than 200 squid a day, reveals new research.

Short-finned pilot whales consume between 82 and 202 of the marine molluscs each every day off the coast of Hawai’i, according to the study.

An international research team - made up of scientists from Australia, Denmark, Spain, and the United States - wanted to know how much squid the whales need to eat each day to survive and if there is sufficient squid to sustain the population.

They say knowing those basic facts is "essential" in the fight to protect the whales .

Their findings, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology , showed that individual Hawaiian short-finned pilot whales consume between 82 and 202 squid per day, adding up to a total of 88,000 tonnes of squid per year for the entire

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