Blue Whale

 

Animal Unique | Blue Whale | Blue whale is a mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales. It is the largest known animal ever existed. Blue whales are found in all oceans of the world. They mate and calve in tropical-to temperate waters in winter and feed in polar waters during the summer months. Blue whales in the northern hemisphere north to Arctic waters to feed, Blue whales in the Southern Hemisphere south to Antarctica to feed. Almost all the southern hemisphere population can be found in the summer enter land in the Antarctic. 

 

Scientific classification
Kingdom:     Animalia
Phylum:     Chordata
Class:     Mammalia
Order:     Cetacea
Suborder:     Mysticeti
Family:     Balaenopteridae
Genus:     Balaenoptera
Species:     B. musculus
Binomial name       : Balaenoptera musculus

The Blue whale is the largest mammal, possibly the largest animal ever to inhabit Planet Ocean. The body is long, slightly tapered, and streamlined, with the head making less than one fourth of the total body length. The rostrum is broad and flat and almost U-shaped, with a single ridge that extends just forward of the blowholes to the tip of the snout. The holes are contained in a large, raised "splash guard", and the impact is long and straight. 

 

The Blue whale is blue-gray in color, often with lighter gray spots on a dark background or dark spots on a light background. The underside of the flippers, a lighter color or white, while the abdomen (upper) side of the fluke is dark. The ventral side of the body is often yellow-green in color, because blue whales graze on microorganisms called diatoms in the cold waters of Antarctica, North Pacific and North Atlantic.

The dorsal fin is small and triangular-shaped to sickle-shape, and is three-quarters of the way back on the body. The flippers are tapered and relatively short, about 12% of the total body length. The fluke is broad and triangular. The back is smooth with a slight median notch. Although they may individually or in small groups to find, it is more common to see Blue whales in pairs. They are sometimes seen in larger groups and loosely defined concentrations of 50-60 were observed.

Like humpbacks, Blue whale also sing or call. The reason for vocalization is unknown. But there are six possible reasons, the maintenance of inter-individual distance, species and individual recognition, contextual information transmission (eg power, alarm, courtship), maintenance of social organization (eg contact conversations between women and men), the location of topographic features and location of prey resources.

Blue whales are the largest predator ever inhabit this planet, although it is thought that almost exclusively feed on small, shrimp-like creatures called krill or euphausiids. A baleen whale, it has a series of 260-400 fringed overlapping plates hanging from each side of the upper jaw where teeth would otherwise be. These plates consist of a fingernail-like material called keratin that frays out into fine hairs on the ends of the mouth near the tongue. During feeding, large amounts of water and food included in the mouth and the pleated grooves in the throat greatly expand its capabilities. As the mouth closes, the water is expelled through the baleen, which trap the food near the tongue to be swallowed.

Blue whales are not easy to capture or kill. Their speed and power meant they were rarely pursued by early whalers who instead targeted sperm and right whales. Because of their sheer size, strength and speed, adult Blue whales have virtually no natural enemies. Blue whales may be injured, sometimes fatally, after colliding with ships, but also be caught or entangled in fishing gear.After that Blue whales became so scarce that the whalers turned to other species. In 1966, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned all hunt Blue whales and gave them worldwide protection.

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