Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus)
Blue Whale (photo credit: NOAA Fisheries)
Description: Blue whales are the largest animals in the world. They can be up to 110 feet long and weight 330,000 pounds. They have a long slender body with a very small dorsal fin and true to their name, they have smooth blue-gray skin. The size of a blue whales heart is as large as a small car and several of their arteries are large enough for a person to swim through. Blue whales were heavily hunted during the whaling industry of the 19th and 20th centuries, and are still classified as an endangered species to this day.
Habitat: They can be found in 4 of the world’s 5 oceans, the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and the Southern. The subgroup of blue whales that can be seen in Oregon, the Eastern North Pacific, range from Alaska to Mexico and Central America. They give birth to their calves in the warm waters of Mexico and Central America and then migrate to the nutrient rich Northern Pacific to feed.
Diet: Like other baleen whales, a blue whales’ diet is primarily krill. They can eat up to 4 tons of krill every day.
Tide Pool Tidbits:
Blue whales can makes noises that are 188 decibels, making it the loudest animal on earth. This allows them to be heard for 1,000 miles, communicating with other blue whales across the ocean.
Female blue whales are larger than males, males are typically 70 to 80 feet compared to 90 to 100+ feet for females.
A new born blue whale calf is more than 20 feet long and while it is nursing it grows by an average of 200 pounds per day.