Saturday, June 2, 2012

Something Blue... and Krill!

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!)
Photos from here, here,
here and here.

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