Largest living animal –Blue Whale

Hey guys  we saw in earlier blog hummingbirds Blog in As size doesn’t matter but sometimes it will be matter when we think about A whale, isn’t It . Today we are going to know some cool Facts and Information About this big thing.

                                                 Classification 

Kingdom:            Animalia                                        Phylum:                   Chordata

Class:                 Mammalia                                     Order:                    Artiodactyla

Infraorder:        Cetacea                                        Family:                    Balaenopteridae

Genus:                Balaenoptera                                Species:                 B. musculus

Let’s know about it, The Blue Whale is the largest animal ever to have lived on earth. The blue whale is a marine mammal belonging to the baleen whales At up to 29.9 meters (98 ft) in length and with a maximum recorded weight of 173 tones (190 short tons) and probably reaching over 181 tones (200 short tons), it is the largest animal known to have ever existed.

In addition to the blue whales massive size it is also one of the loudest animals in existence. In fact blue whales calls can be heard several miles away and far below the ocean’s surface. Blue whales were abundant in nearly all the oceans on Earth until the beginning of the twentieth century. 

For over a century, they were hunted almost to extinction by whalers until protected by the international community in 1966. A 2002 report estimated there were 5,000 to 12,000 blue whales worldwide, in at least five groups. The IUCN estimates that there are probably between 10,000 and 25,000 blue whales worldwide today. Before whaling, the largest population was in the Antarctic, numbering approximately 239,000 (range 202,000 to 311,000).

There remain only much smaller (around 2,000) concentrations in each of the eastern North Pacific, Antarctic, and Indian Ocean groups. There are two more groups in the North Atlantic, and at least two in the Southern Hemisphere. As of 2014, the Eastern North Pacific blue whale population had rebounded to nearly its pre-hunting population.

Blue whales feed almost exclusively on krill, though they also take small numbers of copepods.The species of this zooplankton eaten by blue whales varies from ocean to ocean. In the North Atlantic, Meganyctiphanes norvegica, Thysanoessa raschii, Thysanoessa inermis and Thysanoessa longicaudata are the usual food] in the North Pacific, Euphausia pacifica, Thysanoessa inermis, Thysanoessa longipes, Thysanoessa spinifera, Nyctiphanes symplex and Nematoscelis megalopsand in the Southern Hemisphere, Euphausia superba, Euphausia crystallorophias, Euphausia valentini, and Nyctiphanes australis.

  An adult blue whale can eat up to 40 million krill in a day. The whales always feed in the areas with the highest concentration of krill, sometimes eating up to 3,600 kilograms (7,900 lb) of krill in a single day.

-:Quick view of blue whale amaze:-  

The oldest Blue Whale were discovered this way was calculated to be around 100 years old, though the average life is thought to be around 80 to 90 years           

Being able to grow to lengths of over 100 ft. long and weighing up to 180 tons the blue whale is the largest living animal in the world.

Although the blue whale is called a “blue” whale it is actually closer to a grayish blue rather than a solid blue.

It isn’t until the whale dives under the water that it appears to be a solid blue color.

A baby blue whale can measure in at around 25 ft. long making it as big as a killer whale, which is the largest marine mammal in the dolphin species.

     A healthy adult blue whale can live for 70 – 90 years.

          

The blue whale can eat as many as 40 million krill per day or around 8,000 lbs. daily in order to power its massive body.

        These marine mammals aren’t known to have any natural predators, except for occasional attacks on smaller (usually) baby whales by a pack of killer whales, however these attacks appear to be quite rare.

         When searching for food the blue whale can hold its breath for up to 35 minutes.

     Depending on where the research has been gathered it is estimated that as much as 95% – 99% of the entire blue whale population was killed during the whaling era.

         

 Due to significant hunting during the whaling era these marine mammals are now considered endangered and are listed as a protected species.

     The blue whale belongs to one of around 80 known species is Cetacea, which includes all species of whale, dolphin and porpoise.