Hi, welcome to Enchiridion.
In the previous Mosasaurus video, I looked
at how the inaccurate Jurassic World Mosasaurus
was even bigger than the blue whale.
Thus, I thought it would be nice to look at
the Blue Whale.
So let’s get into it.
Remember that in the Mosasaurus episode I
mentioned the fact that Mosasaurus was colossal,
well the Blue Whale is gargantuan.
It’s a marine mammal reaching a maximum
length over 100 feet.
Scientists applied hydrodynamic models, and
they suggest that a Blue Whale couldn’t
exceed 108 feet.
Female blue whales are larger than males.
And they weigh up to 200 tons or 400, 000
pounds, making it the largest and heaviest
animal known to have ever existed.
They are larger than most, if not all dinosaurs.
And if you’re especially curious, you might
be wondering: why are blue whales so big?
Well, the truth is surprising.
It’s because of a combination of factors.
First, thermoregulation--they have to be large
enough to keep from losing too much body heat
to the surrounding water.
In the ocean, Blue Whales have more buoyancy
than land animals which limits their size
through gravity.
Similarly, their gigantism is due to their
choice of prey and the coincidence of their
evolution with a global increase in the upwelling
of nutrient-rich water from the depths of
the oceans.
And this might lead to another question: why
aren’t Blue Whales larger?
Well, their metabolism gets faster as they
get bigger, so they can only get so large.
Blue whales are cetaceans related to the Gray
Whale and the Right Whale.
They call most of the oceans their home.
Despite that, they were once abundant in nearly
all the oceans on Earth, until the end of
the 19th century.
Blue Whales were hunted almost to the point
of extinction.
Around over 380, 000 blue whales were caught
between 1868 and 1978.
In the 1930-1931 season alone, the worldwide
kill of blue whales exceeded 29, 000.
Surprisingly, the global blue whale population
is estimated to be between 10, 000-25, 000,
around 3-11 % of the population size estimated
in 1911, meaning that the number of blue whales
in the world’s oceans is only a small fraction
before whaling decreased their numbers.
Whaling has killed hundreds of thousands of
blue whales from the early 1900s.
Blue Whales are currently endangered species.
Their bodies are usually grayish-blue with
a yellowish underbelly formed by the millions
of organisms that live in their skin.
Under water, their color appears light blue--consequently,
their name: Blue Whale.
They have a broad, flat head packed with 270-395
black baleen plates on each side of their
upper jaw, 60-88 expandable throat pleats,
thin flippers, and a falcate dorsal fin as
well as a massive fluke.
Blue Whales have two blowholes creating a
spray seen 30-40 feet above the water’s
surface.
The largest heart weight measured from a Blue
Whale was 1, 500 pounds, making it the largest
known in any animal.
Their heart is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.
The major blood vessel of a blue whale’s
heart is so big that a small person could
crawl through it.
Oxygen is pumped around its enormous body
by a massive, four-chambered heart, pumping
220 liters of blood through its body.
Compared to their body size, they have small
eyes--the size of a grapefruit and their eyesight
is weak.
Blue Whales secrete earwax throughout their
lives forming long, multilayered plugs.
About every 6 months, a layer of earwax is
formed.
The average age of a blue whale is 80 to 90
years, yet there was one specimen that was
about 110 years old.
Their tongues can weigh as much as a female
elephant, which is around 8, 000 pounds.
Blue Whales may migrate to reduce parasitism,
pathogens, and competition.
Their migration style varies.
They generally spend summers feeding in polar
waters and undertaking lengthy migrations
towards the Equator as winter arrives.
They generally migrate seasonally between
summer feeding grounds and winter breeding
grounds.
Blue whales have one of the loudest calls
in the animal kingdom, up to 188 decibels,
to be exact.This is even louder than jet engines,
which reach up to 140 decibels.
They use these sounds to communicate.
They emit pulses, groans, and moans.
Blue Whales are baleen whales, meaning they
have fringed plates or a material called baleen
attached to their upper jaws which works like
a sieve.
Their diet is exclusively krill.
They can eat up to 4-8 tons or 12, 000 pounds
of food a day.
Their pouch-like jaws envelop krill in masses.
During a dive, a Blue Whale may engage in
a series of turns and 360 degree rolls to
locate prey and rapidly reorient its body
to sweep up large amounts of krill.
To survive, they need highly efficient lungs.
Blue Whales exchange between 80-90 % of oxygen
in their lungs each time they breathe.
Interestingly, Blue Whales have been observed
near Magdalena Bay feeding on pelagic red
crabs.
Accidental or opportunistic consumption of
copepods and amphipods has also been documented.
Blue whales feed on krill at the surface and
at depths greater than 328 feet, following
their prey’s diel vertical migration through
the water column and cruising at around 5
miles per hour, and almost 20 when agitated.
In good conditions, Blue Whales can hear each
other up to 1, 000 miles away.
They use this communication to sonar-navigate
the ocean depths.
Let’s talk about Blue Whale Calves, which
are interesting.
After a year inside its mother’s womb, a
calf weighs up to 3 tons and is about 25 feet
in length.
It guzzles on its mother’s rich milk and
gains around 200 pounds per day for its first
year, which can become up to 73, 000 pounds
that year or over 36.5 tons.
Young are weaned for 6-8 months and after
that, they live on their own.
Whales are at the top of the food chain and
impact the health of the marine environment.
They are threatened by habitat loss.
Man-made threats include Ship Strikes, Entanglement,
Ocean Noise, Pollutants, Plastics and Microplastics,
Oil, Disease and Toxins, and Climate Change.
Their biggest threat is climate change, which
impacts the krill, the blue whales’ major
prey, making this cetacean vulnerable.
You can contribute to their conservation by
keeping your distance when viewing, reducing
speed and being on the lookout when near one,
reporting marine life in distress, and reporting
violations.
Natural threats include predation and competition.
The only sea creature known to attack blue
whales is the orca whale, or killer whale,
in groups.
In conclusion, the Blue Whale is a majestic
and interesting animal that must be respected
and conserved.
Thank you for watching, and if you enjoyed
the video, you can comment which animal I
should make a short documentary on next.
This is Enchiridion, see you next time.
