About Giant Blue Whales

Blue whales are the largest animals to have lived as long as three school buses, and blue whales weighed as much as 15 dinosaurs. Whales' oceanic habitat contributes to their exceptional size, giving them more room to grow in the ocean, removing one of the factors that normally hinders animal size, gravity. This allows them to thrive, unlike other animals blue whales have the loudest voice in the animal world at up to 188 decibels. These vocalizations, often deep wails and rhythmic low-frequency pulses, have been recorded more than 500 miles away, and a blue whale's age can be determined by earwax about every six months.

a new Layer of earwax forms inside a whale's ear canal the wax. primarily serves to protect the ear canal and helps carry sound waves into the whale's inner ear. however, this build-up of wax layers called an earplug can be measured and used to estimate a whale's age much like counting the Rings in a tree trunk. the average life span of a blue whale is about 80 to 90 years but the oldest one found based on its waxy ear plug count was about one hundred and ten years old. blue whales can eat four tons of Food a day that's more than an African elephant weighs. the whale's enormous size their diet primarily consists of tiny crustaceans called krill. the whales use their pouch-like lower jaws to scoop up swarms of thousands of krill floating in the water. the whales then push the water out of their mouths and through baleen bristles lining their upper jaws. the bristles are thin enough to let water through but thick enough to catch krill. whale baleen was often used in 19th-century fashion Inaccurately referred to as whalebone whale baleen is instead made of keratin. the same strong flexible material found in fingernails keratin allowed baleen to become an ideal material for structuring clothes such as corsets collars hat brims and hooped frames in skirts because of the high commercial value of baleen and other whale body parts. blue whales were nearly exterminated today thankfully global bans on whaling were put in place allowing the species to slowly rebound.