Blue Whales (#5)

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The Blue Whale

Scientific name: Balaenoptera Musculus
Size: Generally ranging in length from 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters)
* A 10-story-tall animal
 

Blue whales weigh up to 200 tonnes, or around 441,000 pounds, their tongue alone weighs as much as an elephant! Blue whales do not have teeth. Instead, they have 270 - 395 plates of baleen on either side of their jaw. The baleen help the whale catch about 9,000 pounds of the little krill a day.

  


The blue whale's heart is about the size of a car. It's heartbeat can be detected from two miles away. 
They also have one of the loudest forms of communication, their language of pulses, groans, and moans can be heard by others up to 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away.

babies are also big, 8,800 pounds with a length of some 26 feet. They gain 200 pounds a day!



Blue whales have a cruising speed of 5 MPH, but they can accelerate up to 20 MPH when needed, such as during hunting.

The average life span of blue whales is thought to be around 80 to 90 years. Unfortunately, there are only around 10,000 to 25,000 individuals blue whales left. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List rates them as Endangered.

What we learned in class:

  • Weigh up to 200 tons = 4 small cars
  • Live as long as 110 years
  • A whale Blow hole looks like a human nose!
  • 30 meters long = 3 school busses = 19 female college students
    • In class we wanted to know what 30 meters looked like. We decided to line up and measure ourselves to see how many students long a whale might be. We used two meter sticks to measure the arm span of each student standing finger tip to finger tip. 

Activities for children related to Blue Whales:

  • Field trip to a local museum or aquarium. 
  • Invite a Marine Biologist to guest speak in the classroom.
  • Create a Marine Biologist dramatic center! Add lab coats, magnify glasses, xrays, shark teeth, animal bones.
  • Use a comb to learn how the whale's Baleen screens krill from water.

Children's books related to Blue Whales:











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