Which animal and which plant have the greatest average daily intake of water and what is that daily intake in each case?

helenasykes

The Koala has one of the lowest, the name koala comes from an Aboriginal word relating to the fact that it drinks so little. Mar 21 06, 11:30 AM

mementoflash

Of all farm animals, lactating dairy cows require the greatest amount of water in proportion to their size because water constitutes 86 to 88% of the milk they yield. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/DS085 Mar 21 06, 12:02 PM

Eolena

I would think the the blue whale, which is the largest animal on Earth and lives in water, would have the greatest daily intake. Here's a link to support the "largest animal" fact: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761579739/Blue_Whale.html I haven't found specific figures about their daily intake of water, but this site (http://whale.wheelock.edu/bwcontaminants/welcome.html) says this: "The grooves along the underside allow the mouth to expand many times it normal size, and let the blue whale filter as much as 1000 US tons of water and food at a time." I haven't been able to come up with an answer for which plant though. Mar 21 06, 12:33 PM

Baloo55th

The blue whale filters the water rather than it being part of 'intake', which implied ingestion and processing. However, based on memo's cow, a female blue whale will need a lot of water to produce milk for its sprog. As to plants, there are size variations to take into account. Are we looking for the highest transpiration rate per square metre, or the number of gallons per day for the biggest one of something or other? Mar 21 06, 1:21 PM

gmackematix

Well I suppose the tidal flow of water in and out of a blue whale does probably indicate the largest "intake" of water, but still it would be nice to have a site that gives some estimate for this. And it would be good to know which animal actually ingests the most water in a day. As for the plant, isn't transpiration loss of water? I was wanting to know which plant had the highest intake of water. Incidentally, it was reading about the daily water uptake of a particular tree that inspired me to ask this. Mar 21 06, 8:04 PM

Baloo55th

If it's losing water through transpiration, it also has to take it in or it won't last very long... On a wet day after a drought, a baobab will take in gallons. Then there's the bottle tree of Australia. Mar 22 06, 5:04 AM

gmackematix

I have read that a mature English oak tree will tend to take up about 50 gallons in a day. If we want to avoid that hosepipe ban, perhaps we should reach for the axe. Mar 22 06, 6:40 PM