National Whale Day
I love whales!
Check this:
The Blue Whale’s heart
is
as big as a volkswagon!
Its stomach
holds a tonne
of krill and it needs
4 stomach-fulls of krill each day!
(That is a lot of krill!)
Blue Whales have a row
of 300-400 baleen plates
on each side of their mouth.
The plates
are between
50 – 100 centimetres long.
They
swim at about
22 kilometres an hour
and can dive for
about 10-20 minutes.
They use clicks to communicate.
These whales are the
loudest animals in the
world!
They are louder
than a jet
engine!
These animals are huge
– 33.5
metres long
is the current record holder!
Typically, Blue Whales are
a mottled blue-grey colour,
with a lighter
belly.
(Sounds like perfect camouflage,
but surely the largest
animal in the
world
shouldn’t need to hide
very often…)
These whales sometimes swim
with one or two other whales
(imagine the
krill
they would go through!)
and sometimes,
huge groups of
up to 60 Blue
Whales
can swim together.
(Again... the krill!)
Of course, the largest animal
in the world
has the largest babies!
Imagine an 8 metre
long newborn!
They grow
quickly…
gaining 90 kilograms a day!
It’s thought that these
whales can live for 50 years.
(Again… the
krill!)
I’m fascinated by the krill…
here’s a better idea
of how much they eat:
40 million krill…
a day…
each day…
for the whole
summer feeding period.
All jokes aside,
they are one of the
rarest
whales…
and are endangered.
(If we lose
these whales,
the world will be overtaken
by krill!
Save the Whales!)
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