Blue Whales

Basic Information

Blue whales belong to a scientific family called Balaenopteridae, which includes all the baleen whales!

Scientists call blue whales by their Latin name “Balaenoptera musculus,” which means “muscular whale with fins”!

A group of blue whales is called a pod, and they usually travel in small groups of 2–4 whales!

Blue whales can be found in every ocean on Earth, from the icy waters of Antarctica to the warm tropical seas!

A blue whale can live up to 90 years in the wild, which is about as long as a giant sea turtle!

The largest blue whale ever measured was 110 feet (34 meters) long, which is longer than three school buses placed end to end!

A male blue whale is called a bull, a female is called a cow, and a baby is called a calf!

Blue whales are filter feeders, which means they strain their food from huge mouthfuls of ocean water!

Physical Characteristics

A blue whale’s heart is so big that a small child could crawl through its arteries!

The blue whale’s tongue alone can weigh as much as an adult elephant — about 5,400 pounds (2,450 kilograms)!

A blue whale’s spout (the water it sprays from its blowhole) can shoot up to 40 feet (12 meters) in the air, which is taller than a four-story building!

Blue whales have spots and patches on their skin that are unique to each whale, just like your fingerprints are unique to you!

A blue whale’s eyes are as big as dinner plates, and they spot things in the dim ocean, though they trust their super hearing more to explore the sea!

Despite their enormous size, blue whales don’t have any teeth — instead, they have special filters called baleen plates!

A blue whale’s flippers can grow up to 12 feet (3.66 m) long — about as long as a small car!

The grooves on a blue whale’s throat can stretch to hold a volume of water bigger than a swimming pool!

A blue whale’s tail (called a fluke) can be up to 25 feet (8 meters) wide — that’s wider than many basketball courts!

Blue whales have a special layer of fat called blubber that can be up to 1 foot (about 30 centimeters) thick to keep them warm in cold water!

Behavior & Intelligence

Blue whales can communicate with each other from up to 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away using low-frequency sounds!

Blue whale songs can be louder than a jet engine, reaching up to 188 decibels!

Blue whales sleep by resting only half of their brain at a time, while the other half stays awake to help them breathe!

Blue whales can dive for up to 30 minutes before needing to come up for air!

Blue whales teach their calves important survival skills, like where to find the best feeding grounds!

Blue whales can slow their heart rate down to just two beats per minute when diving deep!

Blue whales don’t use echolocation like dolphins or toothed whales. They rely on deep, powerful calls to communicate and navigate!

Blue whales often breach (jump out of the water), even though scientists aren’t sure exactly why they do this!

Blue whales have different “dialects” of songs depending on which ocean they live in!

Habitat & Survival

Blue whales migrate up to 6,000 miles (9,656 kilometers) each year to find food and warmer waters!

Blue whales prefer deep ocean waters but sometimes come closer to shore to feed!

Blue whales can dive to depths of up to 1,640 feet (500 meters) — that’s deeper than the Empire State Building is tall!

Blue whales often return to the same feeding grounds year after year, remembering where they found good food before!

Blue whales spend summers feeding in cold polar waters and winters breeding in warmer tropical waters!

Blue whales have very few natural predators because of their enormous size — only killer whale pods might try to attack them!

Blue whales can survive in water temperatures ranging from 30°F to 80°F (-1°C to 27°C)!

Blue whales can swim at speeds up to 20 miles per hour (32 km/h), but usually cruise at about 5 miles per hour (8 km/h) to save energy!

Blue whales often gather in areas where deep ocean currents bring lots of nutrients to the surface!

Life Cycle

A baby blue whale drinks about 50 gallons (189 liters) of its mother’s milk every day!

Baby blue whales gain up to 200 pounds (91 kg) every day during their first year of life!

A blue whale pregnancy lasts for about one year — that’s twice as long as a human pregnancy!

Baby blue whales are born weighing up to 3 tons (6,000 pounds) and measuring 23 feet (7 meters) long — already bigger than most adult dolphins!

Blue whale calves stay with their mothers for about six to seven months before becoming independent!

Female blue whales usually have one calf every two to three years!

Baby blue whales learn to swim and surface for air within 30 minutes of being born!

A baby blue whale doubles in length during its first year of life!

Blue whale mothers and calves recognize each other’s unique calls among hundreds of other whales!

Blue whales reach full adult size at about 10 years old!

Diet & Feeding

A blue whale can eat up to 16 tons (14,500 kilograms) of krill in a single day — that’s about the weight of two African elephants!

Blue whales filter their food through 800-1,000 baleen plates in their mouths!

A blue whale’s throat is only about 4–8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) in diameter, so it can’t swallow anything bigger than a beach ball!

Blue whales eat almost exclusively tiny shrimp-like animals called krill, each one smaller than your pinky finger!