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The Blue Whale The Blue Whale Balaenoptera Musculus, or the blue whale, is the largest mammal in the world. This enormous mammal can grow to be 110 feet long and
the blue whale Blue Whales The Blue whale is the largest creature of the sea, in fact, it is the largest creature known to man. Contrary to what most people think,
Whales Whale weighs as much as 20 elephants but lives beneath the sea. The blue whale is Earth's largest animal. Larger than the largest of ancient dinosaurs, blue
with its plates of baleen. In order to get enough of these small creatures to eat, a blue whale has to filter large amounts of water. Folds of skin on its throat
operations in 1925 brought with it increased catches of predominantly blue whales due to their large size and yield of whale oil derived from the blubber that insulates
Submitted by richo69 on November 9, 2005
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Blue Whales
The Blue whale is the largest creature of the sea, in fact, it is the largest creature known to man. Contrary to what most people think, even though Blue whales live in the sea, they are mammals. They breathe air, have their babies born alive and can live anywhere from 30 to 70 years. The Blue whale is a baleen whale, and instead of having teeth, Blue whales have around 300-400 baleen plates in their mouths. They fall under the category of the rorquals, which are the largest of the baleen family. The scientific name of the Blue whale is, Balsenoptera musculus.
Key Words: Balaenoptera musculus, Suborder Mysticeti, balaenoptera intermedia, balaenoptera brevicauds, baleen whale, rorqual, calf, sulfur bottom, Sibbald^s Rorqual, Great Northern Rorqual, gulpers, blowholes, blubber, oil, keratin, krill, copepods, plankton, orcas, endangered Introduction Whales are separated into two groups, the baleen and the toothed whales. The blue whale is the largest baleen whale and the largest animal that ever lived on Earth, including the largest dinosaurs. Baleen are rows of coarse, bristle-like fibers used to strain plankton from the water. Baleen is made of keratin, the same material as our fingernails. They live in pods, the have two blowholes. The blue whale has a 2-14 inch (5-30cm) thick layer of blubber. Blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) are baleen whales (Suborder Mysticeti). They are one of 76 species and are marine mammals.
Background The Blue whale is called a ^rorqual^, a Norwegian word for ^furrow^ referring to the pleated grooves running from its chin to its naval. The pleated throat grooves allow the Blue whale^s throat to expand during the huge intake of water during filter feeding; they can ^hold 1,000 tons or more of food and water when fully expanded^ (Small 1971). Blue whales have 50-70 throat grooves.
Blue whales grow up to about 80 feet (25m) long on average, weighing about 120 tons. The females...
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