Blue+Whale

**Blue whale By: Anna Lynn** media type="custom" key="3657409" The Blue whale can be over 100 tons and is can be as long as 108 feet. The Blue whale is the largest animal ever. The head of the Blue whale forms up to a quarter of the total body length and compared with other rorquals is very broad. The dorsal fin is small and triangular with a tip which may be rounded or pointed.

The Blue whale lives in the Southern Hemisphere while smaller populations live in the North Alantic and North Pacific. They migrate to tropical-to-temperate waters during winter months to mate and give birth.

The Blue whale is thought to feed almost exclusively on small shrimp-like creatures called euphausiids or krill. During the summer feeding season the Blue whale consumes an astounding 4 tons or more a day.

The Blue whale was once considered too difficult to hunt because of their tremendous size and speed, however with the introduction of factory ships and harpoon guns, in the 1920's Blue whales were hunted intensively. By the 1960's the were nearly extinct. Before man's inventions there were 228,000 Blue whales swimming the oceans. Between 1904 and 1978 whalers scoured the seas for this cetacean. Current figures suggest that there is now a mere 11,700 Blues whales swimming the oceans.

Blue whales reach there sexual maturity between the ages of 6-10 or when males are about 74 feet and females are about 79 feet. When calves are born they are about 23 to 27 feet long and weigh about 3 tons at birth.