BLUE WHALE
BLUE WHALE
Production & Survival, Environment Conditions
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
The skin of the Blue Whale is blue grey to light
grey in colour,
with light gray mottling. Only the undersides
of the flippers are
truly white. They have a pleated throat, with
80 or more longitudinal
grooves extending back along the belly. The relatively
coarse bristles
of the Blue Whales baleen are efficient for filtering
euphausiids, its
principle prey. The oral cavity-tongue,
palate and baleen
are inky black.
COMMON NAMES
Blue Whale
SWIMMING PATTERNS
Blue Whales swim with their body almost rigid,
moving chiefly by
moving its tail from side to side.
BREEDING AND FEEDING HABITS
Breeding occurs during late fall and winter, and
lasts about a year.
The whales reproductive cycle is closely attuned
to its migration
schedule. Most adult females probably bear a calf
every second
or third year. When born, they are about 7m in
length and weigh
2-3 tonnes. The mother's milk contains about 35-50
percent fat and it is
estimated she supplies 250liters per day, allowing
the calf gain over
90kg a day.
Feeding: They feed during the summer in
the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
on small crustaceans, eating up to 4 metric tonnes
a day
HABITAT
They are generally in offshore areas but sometimes
in shallow waters.
During the summer they habitat in arctic and subarctic
waters, except
for a local population in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
In the winter,
they habitat in temperate waters.
GROWTH
The largest reported blue whale was 27m in length
and weighed
15 tonnes. From the time of birth, whales greatly
increase their
weight each year, for the first 2 years of their
life, they are known
to gain 90kg a day. At birth, they may weigh as
much as 3 tonnes.
STOCK STATUS
It is known that there were 200,000 Blue Whales
in the worlds oceans
at the turn of the century. Now there are only
known to be 1,100 to
1,500 Blue Whales. They have been protected from
commercial
exploitation in the North Pacific and North Atlantic
since 1965.