Its body is smooth and relatively free of parasites, but a few barnacles attach themselves to the edge of the fluke and occasionally to the tips of the flippers and to the dorsal fin. Its blowholes are contained in a large, raised "splash guard", and the blow is tall and straight and over 20 feet (6 meters) high. Its rostrum (upper part of the head) is very broad and flat and almost U-shaped, with a single ridge that extends just forward of the blowholes to the tip of the snout. Its body is long, somewhat tapered, and streamlined, with the head making up less than one-fourth of its total body length.
The blue whale is the largest mammal, possibly the largest animal, to ever inhabit the earth. These low-frequency sounds travel long distances through water, allowing blue whales to communicate with each other over hundreds of miles of ocean. The blue whale makes deep and rumbling sounds which can be felt as much as heard.
#Blue whale plus#
This, plus the availability of a large food supply, have made it possible for the blue whale to reach such an enormous size. Because its body is supported by water, as a sea animal, the need for heavy bones to support its weight disappeared. On land an animal the size of a blue whale would be crushed by its own weight without the support of large heavy bones.
The blue whale is one of the rorquals, a family that also includes the humpback whale, fin whale, Bryde's whale, sei whale, and minke whale.
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