Introduction
Blue Whales feature article First of all, blue whales are humungous in fact they are the biggest animals to ever live at 100 feet long, these majestic animals rule the ocean and control life in the ocean. At 200 tons, these rare animals can have their tongue weigh as much as an African elephant and their heart as much as a four-wheeler. There is much we don’t know about this animal such as, where they breed. We are piecing everything together. What we do know is that they have an incredible life span. These fast animals in the ocean will never ever slow you down.
Read this article to find out about what these animals eat, how they live so long, and how are they so agile. Read this article and we will find out everything about blue whales. Fun Fact Chart Common Name Blue Whale SCIENTIFIC NAME Balaenoptera musculus TYPE Marine mammals/ Baleen Whale Diet Krill food/ Carnivores Group Name Pod Average Lifespan in Wild 80 to 90 years Size 82 to 105 feet Weight 200 tons Population 15,000 endangered but growing.
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What do Blue Whales Eat?
Somehow, blue whales have a very interesting diet. In order to survive these animals have a mind-blowing, diet eaten exclusively by eating krill, small shrimp-like fish. During certain times of a year, mostly in the summer near the coast of Antarctica, an adult blue whale can eat 8000 pounds of krill a day.
They have huge appetites and they spit out over 500,000 gallons of water per gulp.
Did you blue whales are baleen whales so they don’t have teeth?
They have teeth that are basically long skinny point fingernails called bristles. Bristles are baleen plates that filter out krill. When the whale filters out the water, spits out the water back into the ocean while the krill get stuck into the blue whale's long bristles and Baleen Plates. The thousands of bristles help them digest. The main reason the blue whales eat krill infinitesimal animals is since baleen/blue whales can’t chew the food that they eat, they have to swallow small food since they have one of the worlds smallest esophagus. Therefore, that is how they look so good because of their massive diet.
How do Blue Whales Look?
Mostly, blue whales look 100% blue underwater, but on the surface, their coloring is more admiring blue-gray. Their bellies, take on a yellowish gray hue from the millions of microorganisms/microscopic creatures that take up residence in their skin. The blue whale has a broad, flat head and a long, tapered body that ends with wide, triangular flukes. These mammals are one of the most beautiful animals to live. Therefore they are easy to recognize wherever they are Where do Blue Whales Live? Furthermore, most whales including blue whales live in all 5 of the main oceans (Arctic, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Southern) around the world occasionally swimming in small groups usually by themselves or in pairs. They often spend summers feeding in polar waters and undertake massive migrations towards the Equator and the north pole as winter arrives. These graceful swimmers cruise the ocean at more than five miles an hour but accelerate to more than 20 miles an hour when they are agitated and scared.
Blue whales are among the loudest animals on the planet. In 1000 they emit a series of pulses, groans, and moans, and it’s thought that they are quiet these animals singing in good conditions, blue whales can hear each other from thousands of miles away. Scientists think they use these loud vocalizations and moans are not only to communicate but to hunt for krill, which gives them their sonar vision which boosts their hearing so that they can hear each other from over a thousand miles. Thes emigration patterns help them get good activity which makes them live longer.
How Long do they Live?
Many, Blue Whales live for a very immense life span.
Blue Whales are one of the animals that fall into the group of creatures that has an extreme life span. Scientists recently discovered that these marine mammals have wax-like layers that let them live longer they give them extra sources of energy. The average age of a blue whale in the wild is 80 to 90 years the greatest of any mammal to ever live the longest age ever recorded of a blue whale was 180 years old. On the contrary, blue whale calves are just ready to start their impeccably long majestic lives. Incredibly, blue whale calves are huge! The calves that are born, are already bigger and heavier than elephants. After one year in its mother's womb, a baby blue whale grows 25 feet and 4 tons the day it’s born. For about 5 months these baby blue whales drink 400 liters of milk a day they don’t have as big blowholes as other adults, they can only shoot up to 6 feet tall as they grow and when they start eating krill they can shoot up to 30 feet of water through the low-hole in the air. They gain up to 200 pounds a day for the next 5 months. These animals eat as much as an elephant on the first day these animals taste krill.
After all, these massive diets are keeping the population How Many are left?
Vigorous hunting in the 1900s by whalers seeking whale oil and blubber drove blue whales on the brink of extinction. Between the mid-1900s and 1960 more than 360,000 blue whales were slaughtered and killed for the oils in their body, but then the International Whaling Committee banned whaling of blue whales but since then they barely came back. Blue whales have few predators but are rarely known to fall to killer whales and sharks 25% of adult blue whales have scars from killer whales. These massive mammals are severely endangered, but thanks to ocean conservatives, they are now illegal to be whaled or else you can suffer a lifetime amount of jail. On the contrary, their population isn’t going down. Where do they Breed Mostly, Mating starts in late autumn/fall and continues to the end of winter. Little is known about mating behavior or where their breeding grounds are, some scientists say that the breeding grounds are near coastal and the tropical area of the earth. In the fall, males will follow females for a couple of months around October to January, seasonal periods of time. Occasionally, a second male will attempt to trick other males by challenging them to races, so they can get the female, and the whales will race each other at high speed, ranging from 17 miles per hour (27 km/h) to 20 miles per hour (32 km/h).
This often causes racing whales to breach, which is rare in blue whales. This racing behavior may even escalate to physical violence between the males for the females. Scientists have observed this behavior in multiple parts of the world, including the Gulf of St. Lawrence (a coast in Canada). Another location that weird behavior changes happened was South Taranaki Bight (a coast in New Zealand). That's why we don’t exactly know where their breeding grounds are. The closest things we know is that they breed in places with low or no altitude, so that means that they go near coastal areas. On the other side, we know their migration pattern.
How do they grow so big?
Personally, I have heard this question many times it is how are blue whales so big? Well, recently scientists from National Geographic and BBC Earth recently, found out why blue whales grow so much larger and faster than other animals that ever existed the answer is because they live underwater and they always eat the same thing they only eat krill which is made of rich nutrients that give out huge growth spurts. Well, some may ask how come humpback whales don't grow a hundred feet long, well blue whales are the only baleen whales that sleep horizontally and in the water they can hold their breaths for a long time since they have the worlds biggest lungs! These marine creatures are so big that there is no blue whale in an aquarium in the whole world! Not only that, they are the strongest ever.
How much can their body take?
According to recent studies, blue whales have the strongest layers of protection to ever exist. One of the reasons is all the blubber they have when they go to Antarctica for their feeding season in the summer they have to have a lot of blubber to protect their whole body from the cold icy mirky waters in Antarctica. They have so much blubber and they also basically have a shell of protection to protect them from being hunted by killer whale the best chance of killing a blue whale is when they collide into a ship. Now that whaling is illegal those types of kills are accidental.
Conclusion
Finally, I just wanted to say why blue whales are so important is because they play a big role in the ecosystem is because they balance out the food chain since krill population keep growing and blue whales balance the ecosystem Most species of fish would not be alive if it keeps not for blue whales. These animals will continue to rule these oceans no matter how many there are!
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