Facts About Blue Whale

Blue whale is indeed the largest mammal to exist on earth. The whale is so immense that it is impossible for it to survive out of water, as its bones would crumple under its own body weight. Though blue whales are aquatic creatures, they are very much unlike their other piscine friends, for they are warm-blooded, can breathe, nurse their babies and have some amount of hair or fur on their body as well. They are mammals, but perfectly conditioned for aquatic life. It’s interesting to know that whales are the descendants of creatures that once dwelled in lands. Contrary to the popular understanding, blue whales are not blue in color, but gray. Today, these whales are facing the fear of extinction. The enormous size of this mammal is believed to be one of the biggest reasons behind this threat. Read on to explore some interesting facts and amazing information on water mammoth.

Facts About Blue Whale

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Cetacea

Family: Balaenopteridae

Subfamily: Mysticeti

Species: B. musculus

Group Name: Balaenoptera

Length: 108 feet

Weight: 180 metric tons

Lifespan: 34 years

Diet: Small planktonic crustaceans

Habitat: Oceans

Age of Sexual Maturity: 8-10 years

Gestation Period: 10-12 months

Number of Offspring: One

Interesting & Amazing Information On Blue Whales

A big blue whale can be as big as Boeing jet. Its heart is usually the size of a car and its tongue is large enough to accommodate at least one elephant.
Blue whales use blowholes or ‘nostrils’ to breathe. They have two blowholes on top of their heads, to assist in breathing. Their exhaling blow can be 12 m (36 ft) tall and their blow can be heard from as much as 2 km away.
Like humans, these whales have belly buttons and they give birth and nurse their young ones. Like humans, their bellybutton is also very much the leftover part of their umbilical cords.
Blue whales have eyes as big as the size of small plates. Their brain weighs 5 kg (12.5 pounds) and the head represents 40% of their total length.
These whales are more of mammals, than fish. They are warm-blooded, have lungs rather than gills and nourish their young ones with milk.
A blue whale's milk supposedly tastes like a mixture of fish, liver, milk of magnesia, and castor oil and is very rich and nourishing for its little baby.
Blue whales are known to possess the largest penis in the world, which is around 2.4 m (8 ft) long!
These whales drink over 50 gallons of their mother's milk in a day. In the first several weeks of their life, they gain 10 pounds an hour or a little over 200 pounds a day!
It's hard to imagine, but the world's biggest animal - blue whale - eats prey that is less than 1/1000^th of its size. In order to get enough to eat, a full-grown blue whale might eat 40 million krill in one day!
The whale takes in as much krill as possible in one gulp and then flushes out the extra water through comb-like plates called baleens.
Did you know that a blue whale can take in as much as 50 tons of water in one gulp?
Blue whales migrate from polar waters, where they feed, to warmer, temperate waters, where they breed and have babies. Scientists assume that blue whales rely on their loud sounds to navigate through water.
Whales are famous for their singing, especially the blue whales. Their song can have different reasons: getting a mate, social interaction, giving out alarm, keeping inter-individual distance, feeding, locating prey and so on.
A blue whale's song has 155 and 188 decibels and is thus, the loudest animal sound in the world (by comparison, a pneumatic drill is about 100 dB). However, blue whales sing at frequencies between 10 and 40 Hz and infrasound less than 20 Hz, which cannot be heard by humans.

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