Meet the Antarctic Blue Whale! - The Largest Animal In The World!

Hello Kids! Welcome back to KidsCast! Today we have an interesting and fabulous topic, The Antarctic Blue Whale. So let's start!

The Antarctic Blue Whale (Scientific name: Balaenoptera musculus) is the largest animal in the World. It weighs up to 400,000 pounds (181436.948 kg) which is approximately 33 elephants! Its length is 98 feet. The blue whales are found in all oceans except the Arctic Ocean.

Interesting Facts:

• You will be surprised to know that the whale is also amongst loudest animals on Earth! Its call reaches 188 decibels (a jet engine reaches about 140 decibels). Its call can be heard for hundreds of miles.
• The whale has a heart which is the size of a small car.
• It consumes about 7936 pounds of krill (a crustacean) per day!

Behavior and Diet:

They sometimes swim in small group. Most often they are found alone. They swim at 5 miles per hour (8 km/h) when they are feeding and travelling, but they can accelerate up to 20 miles per hour (32 km/h) too!

Their primary diet is krill, but fish and copepods are also been eaten by them occasionally. When they hunt for food, they filter feed by swimming towards large schools of krill with their mouth open and closing their mouths around the krill. Once closed, blue whales then push the trapped water out of their mouth with their tongue and use their baleen plates (filter-feeding system) to keep the krill trapped inside.

Lifespan:

Their lifespan is around 80 to 90 years. 

The Antarctic Blue Whale is Endangered:

Their population was severely reduced by Whaling (practice of killing whales for meat, oil or whalebone). Don't worry, the population is increasing very slowly after the larger impact. The whaling started in the Southern Atlantic Ocean in 1904. In the 1960s there was legal protection given, but the illegal hunting continued till the 1972. 

A large Number of Blue Whales were recently Sighted!

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) led some scientists and they were able to share good news after returning from their 2020 expedition. They went to the Sub-Antarctic Island of South Georgia. They counted up to 55 Antarctic Blue Whales! 

Dr. Jennifer Jackson, a BAS whale ecologist says "After three years of surveys, we are thrilled to see so many whales visiting South Georgia to feed again. This is a place where both whaling and sealing were carried out extensively. It is clear that protection from whaling has worked, with humpback whales now seen at densities similar to those a century earlier when whaling first began at South Georgia.”

Blue Whale Range Map

The blue color indicates the places where the Antarctic Blue Whale lives.

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So Kids, that was all for today. Hope you had fun reading this. Till we publish our next post, Bye-Bye Happy Learning!