Blue Whales

Facts about Blue Whales, "Scientific name Blue whale is Balaenopter musculus". The Blue Whale are marine mammals that belong to the baleen whales. The Blue Whale are known to be the biggest and heaviest animals existing in the world.

A recent survey shows that the Blue Whales have never been weighed as a whole. When weighing them, the Blue Whale are cut into small pieces. Each piece is weighed and recorded.

The Blue Whale were found in every ocean and sea around the world some years back though this started to change in the twentieth century when they were reported to be extinct. This has led to several conservation factors to be taken in order to protect the Blue Whale.

Blue whales come from the family of balaenopteridae. The whales that belong to this family are believed to have diverged from other sub families of mysticeti. Nothing much is known of their diverging period.

Compared to other whales, you will realize that blue whales have long tapering bodies. The Blue Whale heads are flat, u-shaped with a prominent ridge running from the blowhole to the top of the upper lips. Their upper mouth is thick with baleen plates present. The baleen plates are around 300 and each is 3 feet 2 inches long which hang from the upper jaw.

Along the Blue Whales throat there are 70 and 118 ventral pleats which are parallel to the body length. The pleats are very useful when evacuating water from the blue whales mouth after feeding. The Blue Whale have two blow holes and their lungs capacity is around 5,000 liters.

Generally the Blue Whale dorsal fins are small and are around 3 to 28 inches (8 – 70cm) in height. They are only visible when the whales are diving. They vary in shape from one individual to another.

The Blue Whale typical speed is around 12 mph (20 km/h) though they can reach speeds of 31 mph (50 km/h) especially when interacting with other whales. But they reduce their speeds to 3 mph (5 km/h) when they are feeding.

Despite of having very big throats, the Blue Whales cannot swallow big pieces of food. In fact an observation was made that showed that a small ball cannot pass through their throats. In regard to this the Blue Whales main food is krill and cocepodes.

In adulthood, blue whales can consume more than 30 million of krill in a day. They normally feed in a depth of around 330 feet (100 meters) which is done during the day and feed on the surface at night. The blue whale dive for around 10 to 20 minutes though there records that a 36 minutes dive was experience.

blue whale Feeding is done by taking a large amount of krill together with water into the mouth. After that the water is squeezed out by the baleen plates by pressure from the tongue. When the mouth is clear of water the krill are swallowed since they cannot enter through the baleen plates. Accidentally as the feeding goes on small fish and crustaceans are swallowed.

Blue whales are not social animals. They are rarely seen together except in feeding grounds that you can see a group of around 50 whales. The blue whale scatter immediately after they feed.

Vocalization is done by both sexes though it is prolonged in males. It is believed to be a form of communication especially in males. The male blue whale are believed to make it louder during mating seasons.