by: Nicole Le Boeuf
This species was named for its bluish gray mottled appearance. Its scientific name has meaning as well. The word balaenoptera is Latin and Greek for winged or finned whale while the word musculus is Latin for mouse, but is generally translated to mean muscular.
Blue whales are very slender and streamlined with a broad, u-shaped head as seen from above. On the center of the rostrum, they have a single, prominent ridge which leads into a "splash guard-like" structure protecting its blowholes. Its dorsal fin is relatively small and set so far back on the animal that it is rarely seen until the animal dives.
The largest animal believed to ever have lived, the blue whale reaches an astonishing 23-27 m in length weighing around 160 tons. However, the record for the longest blue whale is that of an animal 33 m long taken by whalers. There is some difference between the size of the males and females with females being slightly larger. Newborn calves are approximately seven meters in length.
Blue whales are pelagic or open ocean creatures and can be found in all oceans of the world. Because of this, they are most likely found in all waters surrounding Africa. They will come into more shallow, coastal areas occasionally for feeding and reproductive purposes, but generally will remain along the edges of continental shelves and ice fronts. One group of blue whales is known to spend its summers south of Madagascar.
The largest whale in the world can consume up to eight tons of krill each day. Their particular style of capturing prey in their baleen consists of lying on their side or upside down in the water and swimming quickly or "lunging" through a dense school of krill to maximize the size of their catch.
Blue whales were hunted mercilessly from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. They were given protection by the International Whaling Commission in 1965, and since then have shown an increase in population size.
Endangered.
Jefferson, T.A. Leatherwood, S. and M.A. Webber. 1994. FAO Species Identification Guide, Marine Mammals of the World. FAO of the United Nations, Rome.
Kato H. Miyashita T. Shimada H. Segregation of the two sub-species of the blue whale in the Southern Hemisphere. Report of the International Whaling Commission (45). 1995. 273-283.
Leatherwood, S. and R.R. Reeves. 1987. The Sierra Club Handbook of Whales and Dolphins. Sierra Club Books, San Fransisco.
Paterson R A. Van Dyck S. A blue whale Balaenoptera musculus (Linnaeus, 1758) from St. Lawrence, Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 38(2). 1995. 615-621.
URL for this page: http://csiwhalesalive.org/csibluewhale.html