Hobbies And Interests
Size
Reaching lengths between 85 and 100 feet, the blue whale sometimes weighs as much as 200 tons; its heart alone weighs more than the average car. These mammals can exhale and send water 40 or 50 feet into the air. Blue whales have the capacity to consume as much as 4 ½ tons of food each day, and their calves sometimes gain 200 lbs. per day as they grow.
Baleen
The term baleen refers to a material similar to that which comprises your fingernails, creating as many as 400 pairs of fringed plates in the blue whale's mouth, which attach to the mammal's upper jaw. After the blue whale moves through an area rich in its favorite food, the tiny shrimp-like krill, it opens its mouth and gulps down water. The tongue of the whale forces the water through the baleen, in effect straining it. The krill remain behind, trapped by the baleen, left there for the blue whale to swallow.
Geography
Blue whales make long migratory journeys each year, moving from the tropics in the winter months to the Polar Regions as summer approaches. Blue whales, once in the colder waters of the Polar Regions, feed heavily upon the krill they find there. Travelling at an average speed of five miles an hour, blue whales have the ability to swim as rapidly as 20 miles an hour. They typically travel alone or in pairs, but sometimes join up in groups known as pods. The largest of the blue whale usually inhabit the southern Polar Regions.
Effects
According to Antarctic Connection, at one time as many as 200,000 blue whales cruised about in the oceans of the planet. Severe hunting brought the blue whale close to total extinction, but the International Whaling Commission protected the whales with a ban on hunting in 1966. Hunters prized the blue whale for its baleen, meat and the oil that came from its vast supply of blubber. Estimates of the numbers of blue whales in the world's oceans range between 10,000 and 25,000; they are still on the World Conservation Union Endangered List.