101 Facts About Blue Whales

• The blue whale is the largest mammal to have lived on Earth.

• The binomial name for the blue whale is Balaenoptera musculus.

• Blue whales are found in waters off eastern Canada. They can be found in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland coast, and in the Davis Strait. You can also find them between Baffin Island and Greenland. 

• Blue whales feed on the most miniature marine life, such as tiny shrimp-like animals called krill. In one day, a single male can consume 36,000 kg of krill.

• Blue whales swim at speeds up to 8km/h but can reach a speed of 30k/h.

•  The blue whale hunts its food by diving and descending to 500 meters.

• Despite being the giant animal in the world, blue whales have a couple of predators. These are sharks and killer whales. Another main threat to the blue whale is the corrosion from large ships.
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• The mouth of a blue whale has a row of plates fringed with bristles. These bristles assist it in filtering its primary source of food from the water. In the mouth, there are long strands that hold its minute prey.

• The blue whale can hold up to 5,000 kg of water and plankton in one mouthful. After forcing the water out of its mouth, the blue whale licks the bristles with its fleshy tongue.

• The blue whale hunts at low depths but must come to the water’s surface to breathe. When it breathes out, it exhales the air out of a blowhole in a cloud of pressurized vapor. This rises vertically above the water for a distance of up to 9 meters. 

• Female blue whale breeding occurs after three years; their gestation period takes 11-12 months. Females only give birth to one calf.

•  A calf is born weighing up to 2,700 kg and 8 meters long. The mother and another female blue whale must assist the calf in reaching the surface to take their first breath of air to survive after birth. 

• The calf is fed by its mother up to 600 liters of milk per day. The calf gains 90 kg each day over its first year.

• Blue whales swim in small groups; however, sometimes, they swim alone or in pairs. It is said they form close attachments with other blue whales quickly.

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• The blue whale is the loudest animal on the planet, although humans cannot hear them. They communicate using a series of low-frequency pulses, moans, and groans. In good conditions, blue whales can be heard by others across a distance of 1,600 km.

• Blue whales are now known to have spindle neurons. These are brain cells that process our emotions, which may even enable the whale to feel love or suffering. to love and suffer ·     Blue whales were hunted by human beings seeking to have whale oil, which was said to have medicinal benefits. Many blue whales were killed in the 1900s by whalers.

• The whaling commission was enacted in 1966 to save the blue whale from hunters.

• Today it is estimated that only around 10,000 – 25,000 blue whales swim across the oceans in the world.

• According to the World Conservation Union, the blue whale is an endangered and red-listed animal.

• The blue whale has a tongue that weighs as much as an elephant. The heart is the size of an average car, and its blood vessels are so large that a human being can swim through them.
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• Blue whales have long, streamlined bodies, broad heads, giant flippers, a small dorsal fin, and a powerful tail. A few of them have a yellowy-colored underside, which led to blue whales being called “sulfur bottom” whales.

• A blue whale can grow up to 30 meters long and weigh up to 130,000 kg, heavier than three lorries.

• Blue whales can be found in all oceans except the Arctic Ocean.

• The blue whale is classified as a baleen whale. This means their upper jaw has plates that are fringed. The name baleen comes from the materials that these plates are made up of that resemble fingernails.

• Blue whales do not have teeth but use the baleen to eat. They use the baleen first to expand the pleated skin they have in their belly and throat to take in enormous amounts of water. After the water is consumed, they use their tongues to filter the krill through the baleen.

• Blue whales seem to be blue while inside the water, but the underbelly has a yellowish hue due to the millions of microbes on its skin.

• Blue whale on the upper side underwater still looks bluish, yet they have blotchy blue-gray color on the surface.

• Blue whales are not social with humans and have been known to attack.

• Blue whales are one of the world’s longest-living animals. They have a life span of between 80 and 90 years. The longest-living blue whale recorded is 110 years.

• The age of a blue whale can be gauged by looking at its earplugs, according to scientists. The earplugs are wax-like and have layers; after counting these layers, scientists can estimate their age. 
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• The blue whale has one blowhole on top of its head.

• Blue whales use their vocalizations and hearing abilities to navigate through the depth of ocean places where light cannot reach. This is a system of echolocation navigation.

• Blue whales have big hearts that beat at a speed of 5 beats to 6 beats per minute. When they dive deep, their heartbeats change to a slower three beats per minute.

• Blue whales do sleep, but they sleep while swimming. This is possible as they can utilize half their brain for sleeping while the other half is active.

• Scientists revealed that the blue whale, among other whales, evolved from land animals. Scientists call them Pakicetus, and they lived 54 million years ago in an area today called Pakistan.

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• Blue whales have a long tapering body, compared to the stockier build of other whales.

• Blue whales have a small triangular-shaped dorsal fin situated on the back. This fin measures up to 30 centimeters in height. This fin shape may differ from one blue whale to another. 

• Blue whale flippers are short, although their tail is broad.

• Blue whales have a flat U-shaped head, and a ridge runs from the blowhole to the top of the upper lip.

• The front part of a blue whale’s mouth is thick with around three hundred baleen plates, each measuring one meter long.

• Blue whales often migrate. They migrate in winter to temperate and subtropical regions and in spring and summer to the polar areas. 

• The blue whale mating season starts in late autumn and ends at the end of winter. Females give birth once every two to three years at the start of winter. 

• Blue whale calves are given birth in warm, low-latitude waters.

• The blue whale has one natural predator, the orca. As many as 25% of mature blue whales have scars from orca attacks.

• Blue whales are endangered, according to IUCN. Their global population has reduced by more than 99% during the 20th century. A recent estimate shows that their population is 10,000 -25000 globally, which puts them among other endangered sea mammals.

• During mating, blue whales are heard performing songs that males use to attract a female to mate with. 

• The calf in the womb is fed through the umbilical cord, which helps the unborn calf receive food and other vital nutrients. This also helps remove harmful chemicals and waste products from the baby’s body, thus helping it grow healthy and strong. 

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• Female blue whales feed their calf for up to 6-9 months. Then the calf can provide on its own and will separate from its bond with its mother.

• When a predator threatens the blue whale, it can swim at a speed of 30 mph for short bursts, but in everyday situations, it swims much slower.

• Blue whales can communicate with each other up to 1,000 miles away due to their loud vocals and excellent hearing. 

• The blue whale was on the brink of extinction in the 1900s due to intensive hunting in search of whale oils.

• This sea mammal is said to be the loudest animal on Earth, and their vocalizations can lead to other small animals becoming dead.

• Since the commercial whaling of these sea mammals ended, they still have other threats. Noise pollution, the reduction of available food, marine contaminants, and collisions with ships all threaten the blue whale’s existence.

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• Blue whales are long and slender, and their body can be of various shades of bluish-grey dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath. 

• A 2002 report said 5,000 to 12,000 blue whales worldwide in at least five populations. This number is said to have almost doubled today.

• Blue whales fall under the Rorquals family, which includes the humpback whale, fin whale, bryde’s whale, minke whale, and sei whale. 

• Blue whales appear to have a long tapering body stretched with a stockier head compared to other whales.

• The blue whale has between 70 and 118 grooves. Also called ventral pleats, these run along the throat parallel to the body length. These pleats help the blue whale to evacuate water from the mouth after lunge feeding. 

• The blue whale has a dorsal fin, which is only visible when diving. The dorsal is small, with a height of 28 centimeters and an average length of 20 to 40 cm. 

• The blue whale has flippers, which measure 3-4 meters long. The upper side of the flippers is grey with a white border, while the lower side is white. 

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• The blue whale has both a grey head and tail fluke.

• In history, the longest blue whales recorded were two females, which measured 33.6 and 33.3 meters, respectively. 

• Female blue whales are more extended than males, but the males are slightly heavier than the females of the same length. This is due to more severe muscles and bones. 

• Blue whales feed at depths as krill move more than 100 meters deep during the day. Krill feed at night on the surface. 

• The blue whale feeds by lunging forward at groups of krill, taking the animals and a large quantity of water into its mouth.

• During mating, one male blue whale will try to take the place of the first male approaching the female. This results in a high-speed race averaging 17 miles per hour to 20 miles. 

• In St. Lawrence, Canada, there is a recorded history of male blue whale racing. This resulted in physical violence and breaching, which is rare in blue whales.

• A blue whale calf weighs about 2.5 tons and is born around 7 meters long.

• Young blue whales reach sexual maturity at five to ten years of age. 

• Blue whales are rarely stranded. This is because they are mainly solitary. Mass strandings are unheard of.

• The voice produced by a blue whale is between 155 and 188 decibels when measured relative to a reference of one microscale at one meter.

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• There are several museums all over the world with blue whale skeletons. In North America, there is a blue whale skeleton at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario. 

• There are blue whale watching attractions north of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and in the Saint Lawrence estuary. 

• Blue whale vocalization is said to use to locate prey resources, discover topographic features, and maintain social organization. They also use this to convey species and individual recognition and to maintain distance from each other.

• The hunting of the blue whale was to get oil.

• Blue whale milk is said to have 18,300 KJ of energy content. 

• Blue whales were abundant in nearly all the oceans on Earth until the beginning of the 20th century, when hunting almost made them extinct.

• Blue whales are regularly seen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the coast of Monterey, California, and Baja, California, Mexico. The southern hemisphere holds most of the Blue whales. 

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• Each blue whale all over the world owns a unique marking. This is according to researchers who have applied photo identification. They have learned that the mottled pigmentation pattern is unique to each individual.

• The blue whale survives on a small diet despite being the largest animal ever to have lived on Earth.

• Krill is a Norwegian word that means young fry of fish.

• The blue whale lacks an esophagus to consume significant sources of food. This means blue whales could not swallow an adult human.

• During migration, the blue whale doesn’t have time to look for food and uses the accumulated fat in the body. It turns this into energy and uses it for travel.

• The young blue whale is more significant than most fully grown animals.

• Blue whales are well adapted to the cold seas. The whine in their body acts as a built-in thermal insulator.

• The blue whale does not have skin glands for evaporation. They use the thickness of their fat thickness and.

• The yellow ventral coloring on the underside results from the accumulation of diatoms in colder water. 

• The blue whale migrates for two reasons; in search of food and breeding.

• The blue whale has several names. Some of these are “sulfur-bottom,” “Sibbald’s rorqual,” the “great blue whale,” and the “great northern rorqual.” 

• The blue whale found in North America falls under the subspecies of B.M Musculus.

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• Some blue whales have barely noticeable lumps. Others have a prominent dorsal.

• When surfacing for breath, the blue whale raises its shoulders to blow water through the blowhole.

• The blue whale has a lung capacity of 5 000 liters. They have twin blowholes shielded by a large splashguard. 

• The blue whales found in the North Atlantic and Pacific are smaller on average than those found in Antarctic waters.

• The blue whale’s ability to grow is from the low-gravity saltwater it takes deep in the sea in search of food.

• The appearance of a blue whale being blue is a mixture of the sea’s color and the sun’s light.

• Blue whales migrate long distances from cold water to warmer waters.

• The blue whale, when migrating, does not eat anything for up to four months.

• The blue whale was once in large numbers, but today it can only be seen in season from one ocean to another. 

• Blue whales were not easy to hunt due to their large size.

References

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