Blue+Whale

= THE BLUE WHALE =)

-
 * The scientific name of the blue whale is** //[|**Balaenoptera**] **musculus**.//

** THE FOOD CHAIN **

HABITAT: Blue whale is found mostly in cold and temperate waters. It prefers deeper ocean waters to coastal waters.The blue whale occurs in the Icelandic & Celtic Marine Ecosystems, Southern Caribbean Sea, and Sea of Cortez Global 200 Ecoregions. Also, approximately 2,000 bluewhales live off the California Coast and migrate to Mexico, and Costa Rica. (Olson & Dinerstein 1998, Olson & Dinerstein 1999)

MORPHOLOGY The blue whale is slate blue in color and has a dorsal fin. It is toothless and has fringed baleen, or whalebone, plates in its mouth, which act as a food strainer. As water is expelled from the whale's mouth, plankton is trapped behind the strainer. The neck of the blue whale has 80 to 100 conspicuous furrows called ventral grooves, which alternately expand and contract as the animal takes in and. .

SPECIAL ADAPTATION: Instead of teeth, the blue whale has a row of plates in its mouth, known as beleen, which functions as a food-collecting device. The mouth and baleen work like a straner, holding up to 5 tons of water and plankton with

HUMAN USE There is no human use of the blue whale but poeple used to hunt them.

The 2 facts about whales .Blue whales are the largest animals ever known to have lived on Earth. .Blue whales live in all the world's oceans occasionally swimming in small groups but usually alone or in pairs.

**PREDATORS** The only natural predator that has ever been recorded attacking a Blue whale is packs of killer whales, or Orcas. ** ORCA WHALE KILLER WHALE ** =
 * Blue whales genus level ** [[image:fin_whale.jpg width="209" height="155"]][[image:sei_whale.jpg]]** THE SEI WHALE THE FIN WHALE **
 * BLUE WHALES SKELETON **Arching 87 feet in length and rising 18 feet above the ground, the blue whale skeleton at the Seymour Center is a sight to behold. The skeleton, dubbed “Ms. Blue” by center volunteers, has a colorful history at Long Marine Lab. She was first assembled in 1985 and has been a centerpiece of the lab’s education program ever since. Prior to that, Ms. Blue’s life and death are an enigma. [[image:blue_whales_skeloton.jpg width="199" height="188"]][[image:bluewhaleskeleton.jpg width="226" height="186"]]
 * WHAT BLUE WHALES EAT: ** When a baby blue whale is about 6 months old, it starts to eat small shrimp-like animals called [|krill]. During its high feeding season, a blue whale consumes more than 4-6 tons of krill in one day.Its hard to imagin, but the worlds biggest animal eats aminals that are less than 1/1000th its size. In order to get enough to eat, a full-grown blue whale might eat 40 million krill a day. [[image:krill.jpg]]
 * FUN FACTS :** .**Blue whales grow to be about 80 feet (25 m) long on average, weighing about 120 tons (109 tonnes. .Blue whales have about 300 to 400 baleen plates instead of teeth which they use to strain food from the ocean water.** . **Blue whales were once considered too difficult to hunt because of their speed and tremendous size.** **. Blue whale is the largest mammal ever to inhabit the Earth.** .**The blue whale has a long tapering body that appears stretched in comparison with the stockier build of other whales.** .**Blue whales can reach speeds of 50 kilometres per hour (31 mph)** .**A blue whale's** **tongue** **weighs around 2.7 metric tons** **.The Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) grows up to 33 metres (110 feet) in length and weighs 200 tons or more in weight.** **.The last sighting of Blue whales was in the San Salvador channel, off Puerto Egas,** **Santiago Island** **.** [[image:blue_whale.jpg width="745" height="284"]]