Wildlife
Blue whales are the largest animals ever to have lived - bigger even than the largest of the dinosaurs. These jumbo-jet-sized giants inhabit the open ocean, where they are found most frequently along the continental shelf edges and near polar ice. A single calf is produced every two to three years, and from birth each calf consumes up to 50 gallons of milk every single day, leading to a colossal weight gain of 90 kilograms per day in its first year of life.
Did you know?
A blue whale's blood vessels are wide enough for a human to swim through.
Scientific name: Balaenoptera musculus
Rank: Species
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Blue encounter
At 200 tonnes, the blue whale is the largest animal on Earth.
At 200 tonnes, the blue whale is the largest animal on Earth.
Blue whale breach
The giant of the ocean in all its majesty.
Blue whales are symbolic ocean giants. Yet despite their size and apparent visibility, they've rarely been filmed in any detail and comparatively little is really known about their life and its habits. As Sir David points out, if so little is known about these giants, how much less is known about the myriad smaller creatures of the seas.
Inside the blue whale
The anatomy of the largest mammal ever to have existed.
Everyone has heard of the blue whale, yet they are rarely seen and not often filmed. Sir David's delight at the privileged close up view of one of these ocean giants as it breached right beside him is evident. Although difficult to comprehend, at 30 metres in length and 180 metric tons or more in weight, the blue whale is the largest animal ever known to have existed.
Blue whale fluker
Great excitement as the giant of the ocean shows its tail!
The largest animal ever to have existed on the Earth, blue whales live throughout the world’s oceans, except the Arctic, and feed on one of its smallest creatures. Their numbers have been greatly reduced by commercial hunting which began in the North Atlantic in 1868. It is plausible to suggest that the population now stands between 3% and 11% of its level in 1911, with only 10-25,000 blue whales remaining. Protected by the whaling ban since 1966, they continue to be caught illegally and threatened by collisions with ships, noise and other marine pollution. Their IUCN status is endangered, with some populations at critical.
A comparison of the mighty blue whale's size in relation to humans.
The following habitats are found across the Blue whale distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Endangered
Population trend: Increasing
Year assessed: 2008
Classified by: IUCN 3.1
The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales (called Mysticeti). At 30 metres (98 ft) in length and 170 tonnes (190 short tons) or more in weight, it is the largest known animal to have ever existed.
Long and slender, the blue whale's body can be various shades of bluish-grey dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath. There are at least three distinct subspecies: B. m. musculus of the North Atlantic and North Pacific, B. m. intermedia of the Southern Ocean and B. m. brevicauda (also known as the pygmy blue whale) found in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean. B. m. indica, found in the Indian Ocean, may be another subspecies. As with other baleen whales, its diet consists almost exclusively of small crustaceans known as krill.
Blue whales were abundant in nearly all the oceans on Earth until the beginning of the twentieth century. For over a century, they were hunted almost to extinction by whalers until protected by the international community in 1966. A 2002 report estimated there were 5,000 to 12,000 blue whales worldwide, located in at least five groups. More recent research into the Pygmy subspecies suggests this may be an underestimate. Before whaling, the largest population was in the Antarctic, numbering approximately 239,000 (range 202,000 to 311,000). There remain only much smaller (around 2,000) concentrations in each of the eastern North Pacific, Antarctic, and Indian Ocean groups. There are two more groups in the North Atlantic, and at least two in the Southern Hemisphere.
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Migration
Adapted to swimming
Carnivorous
Acoustic communication
Active at birth
Viviparous