Why did whales end up larger than most sauropods and what is a whale's limits? I understand that due to the square-cube law (when something grows 2 times but its volume grows 4 times and it goes on) sauropods were massive but not enough when compared to whales because whales got around the square-cube law by using the buoyant force to balance their bodies in the water. In addition, being mammals allowed them to breathe, oxygen-rich air while fish were limited to oxygen-poor water, this thenceforth allowed whales to grow many times more than the largest fish. So my question is what is the limit to whale size and if there is one what is their true potential? A question presented by the scientific community and given to the public.

As best we can tell food availability is the relevant limits in whales. its true that the bigger an animal gets the more energy efficient it is, it needs less food proportionally but still needs more total amounts of food. There is a limit to how much food you can find and eat, especially in the lean parts of the year. This is actually why we see dwarfism on islands lower food availability favors smaller size (less overall food needs). Finding food and even feeding itself takes energy and it reaches a point where the energy you expend is equal to or less than the energy you can extract from your food.

There are other limits like blood pressure, internal surface area, digestion time, heat buildup, but whales have not reached any of these.

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