The largest animal ever Known...... - THE BLUE WHALE

The NatGeo Wild channel is my companion especially when my wild life curiosity has reached its peak.
So colossal are these majestic marine mammals, their hearts alone weigh as much as a car.

Have the Picture of  a 10-story-tall animal walking down the street in your mind and you probably start channelling images of Godzilla or King Kong. But if you imagine it as a marine mammal and place it on its side, swimming … now you’ve got a blue whale.

Movie monsters aside,  Balaenoptera musculus, the blue whale, is the largest animal ever known to have lived on the planet.  So good to know that Even at birth it is one of the world’s biggest animals! There is always more to learn!!!!!
The planet is covered with amazing and  fascinating creatures, but the blue whale ranks among one of the most ranked. Consider the following.

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1. They’ve got mass

Blue whales weigh up to 200 tonnes, or around 441,000 pounds. Isn't that amazing?

2. They’re really big

They’re gigantic, they’re enormous, they’re ginormous! Generally ranging in length from 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters), the longest one ever recorded was a magnificent 108 feet long.

3. They’ve got big thumpers

The blue whale's heart is huuuuge! As in, the size of a car; it's heart beat can be detected from two miles away.

4. The tongues

A blue whale’s tongue alone weighs as much as an elephant.

5. They’re big babies

Not as in sissies, but as in born big. The biggest babies on earth, easily, and at birth already rank amongst the largest full-grown animals.  A baby blue whale (calf) emerges weighing up to 2,7000kg and up to 8m long. New born whales are helped to the surface of the water by their mothers and are often encouraged (nudged) by other females so that they can take their first breath of air. . They gain 200 pounds a day! Their growth rate is likely one of the fastest in the animal world, with a several billion-fold increase in tissue in the 18 months from conception to weaning.

6. They’re loud … and make long-distance calls for free

Blue whales, in fact, are the loudest animals on the planet. A jet engine registers at 140 decibels, the call of a blue whale reaches 188. Their language of pulses, groans, and moans can be heard by others up to 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away.

7. They’ve got big appetites for tiny fish

You will think because they are big,  that they feed on large prey
Blue whales feast on krill; their stomachs can hold 2,200 pounds of the tiny crustaceans at a time. They require almost 9,000 pounds of the little krill a day; and around 40 million krill daily during the summer feeding season.

8. They can travel far and fast

They travel a lot, spending summers feeding in polar regions and making the long trip to the Equator as winter comes along. While they have a cruising speed of 5 MPH, they can accelerate up to 20 MPH when needed.
They can travel from Canada to Kenya

9. They’ve got long lives

It is assumed that they are as old as the Earth’s oldest trees, blue whales are among the planet’s longest-lived animals. The oldest they’ve discovered this way was calculated to be around 100 years old, though the average life is thought to be around 80 to 90 years.

10. They were once numerous

Before whalers discovered the treasure trove of oil that a blue whale could provide, the numbers were generous. But with the advent of 20th century whaling fleets, nearly every last one of them was killed before receiving worldwide protection in 1967.

11. Their future is unclear

While commercial whaling is no longer a threat, recovery has been slow and new threats plague blue whales, like ship strikes and the impact of climate change.
Blue whales have few predators but are known to fall victim to attacks by sharks and killer whales, and many are injured or die each year from impacts with large ships.

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