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BLue Whale
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Sibbaldus
musculus
The largest of all known
animals, the blue whale attains a maximum
length and weight of about
30 metres (100 feet) and 150 tons. It
has short, black baleen, or whalebone,
numerous horny fringed plates on the sides of
the upper jaw that act as a sieve, removing
plankton, on which the animal feeds, from
water expelled from its mouth. The blue whale
is found alone or in small groups in all
oceans. It spends the summer in polar waters,
feeding on shrimplike crustaceans
(krill), and in winter moves toward the
Equator to breed. Once the most important of
the commercially hunted baleen whales, the
blue
whale was greatly reduced in numbers during
the late 19th and the first half of the 20th
century.
 
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