The Balaenoptera Musculus is the largest whale on the earth it is even bigger than the largest dinosaur. Its common name is blue whale. It is a very large whale about one hundred and five feet. It also weighs up to 90 to 150 tons. It would seem that the males would be larger between the two male and female; the females are larger.

 

The way you can spot a blue whale is by their grayish blue skin color. They are all throughout the world's oceans. There isn't that many of Balaenoptera musculus' anymore because they are endangered species. There is about 10,000-14,000 of all blue whale maybe even smaller. The Balaenoptera musculus eats krill which eat plankton.

 

I haven't found anything that eats blue whales. I don't think anything eats them until they die because they are the largest animals in the ocean. They eat almost the tiniest animals. It's weird on how large they are. They can eat about 7,715 pounds of krill per day. Blue whales find fishing nets as a threat.

 

They get tangled up in them. Usually blue whales travel alone or in groups of two or four. They travel about 14 mph and can dive very deep about 1,640 feet deep In the winter the blue whales migrate to the subtropical zones for heat and in the summer the cold areas. Blue whales are not fish they are mammals. Female whales have babies usually every two years. They are in their mothers for about ten to twelve months. Normal calves are twenty-three feet long and about 4,440 pounds. They are not like humans at all. Calf's feed of their mothers for about eight months.

 

Balaenoptera musculus has teeth that are called plates. They have about 260 to 400 plates. It depends on how big they are. The plates aren't like our teeth ours are made out of bones theirs are made of hair which looks like hay. Like other fishes back in the history blue whales were hunted a lot. In most article I found blue whales where very hard to find in the 1920's. They had been difficult because of there speed.

  

Back in the 20's there wasn't boats that went over 14 mph. So now we have boats that are like cars. They are spotted very easily. There is a blowhole on top of the blue whales, which is like a nose to humans. They breath out of it. They store the water inside their mouth and once they need oxygen they release it and the whale goes back underwater.

 

The blowhole in on the left hand side of the whale. They can stay underwater for about two hours without getting air. This is the most educating essay I have ever done. Learning about these blue whales has taught me a lot. They are very interesting and it can be very harsh how people don't have any feelings for these animals. They are very harmless to there environment except to krill but everything has got to eat.

 

The most important thing I have learned about this essay is do not dump waste into other things environment. Their environment may not be important to you but to them it's there home. They do not do anything to hurt you. So why hurt them? When you dump waste into the ocean you aren't just hurting the whales you are hurting mostly the food they eat. How are they going to survive without krill? Besides the fact that they are endangered they are very beautiful whales. Three fact's that I had never heard before about these whales are that they are endangered, they are the largest animals ever lived on earth, and they eat a bunch of krill. So please do not hurt the whales and remember they did nothing to you.

  

Author: Samantha B

Published: 02/2007

  

Photo Credit:

This image is in the public domain because it was released by the copyright holder Postverk Føroya - Philatelic Office