The Whale

Blue whales are baleen whales, which means they have fringed plates of fingernail-like material, called baleen, attached to their upper jaws. When feeding, a blue whale takes huge gulps of water, then filters the water out by pushing its tongue and contracting its throat. Tiny krill are captured in the baleen as the water pours through it.

Did you know? When a blue whale exhales, the spray from its blowhole can reach nearly 30 ft (9m) into the air

It beats only once every ten seconds and can be detected from two miles away.

Blue whales are born back-end first and bear distinctive fetal folds along the abdomen, caused by the baby being bunched and folded in the womb as it grows. The folds often disappear within a week or two after birth, as movement and seawater stretch the baby's skin.

Blue whales are one of the loudest animals on Earth and can produce sounds louder than a jet engine. Their rhythmic pulses and deep moans are so loud they could theoretically travel halfway across an ocean basin, yet the frequency of these calls is often so low that they are totally inaudible to human ears.

The real threat to whales is whaling, which has endangered many whale species. -Dave Barry Between 1900 and the mid-1960s, some 360,000 blue whales were slaughtered.

Their lungs are the size of an average closet Largest Mammal. They often live either alone or in very small groups. Their average lifespan in the wild is between 80 and 90 years old. Females are larger than the males. Its tongue can weigh 3 tones. Link