How fast blue whale

Females are larger than males. The longest whales ever recorded were two females measuring Measurements between — tons were recorded of animals up to 27 metres 89 ft in length.

Despite the size of its mouth, the dimensions of its throat are such that a blue whale cannot swallow an object wider than a beach ball. SPEED Blue whales can reach speeds of 50 kilometres per hour 31 mph over short bursts, usually when interacting with other whales, but 20 kilometres per hour 12 mph is a more typical traveling speed. When feeding, they slow down to 5 kilometres per hour 3. Their call reaches levels up to decibels.

This low-frequency whistle can be heard for hundreds of miles. The blue whale is louder than a jet, which reaches only decibels! Human shouting is 70 decibels; sounds over decibels are painful to human ears. It is not known how long traveling pairs stay together. In locations where there is a high concentration of food, as many as 50 blue whales have been seen scattered over a small area. However, they do not form the large close-knit groups seen in other baleen species.

Blue whales reach these mind-boggling dimensions on a diet composed nearly exclusively of tiny shrimplike animals called krill. During certain times of the year, a single adult blue whale consumes about 4 tons of krill a day.

Blue whales are baleen whales, which means they have fringed plates of fingernail-like material, called baleen, attached to their upper jaws. The giant animals feed by first gulping an enormous mouthful of water, expanding the pleated skin on their throat and belly to take it in.

Then the whale's massive tongue forces the water out through the thin, overlapping baleen plates. Thousands of krill are left behind—and then swallowed. Blue whales look true blue underwater , but on the surface their coloring is more a mottled blue-gray. Their underbellies take on a yellowish hue from the millions of microorganisms that take up residence in their skin. The blue whale has a broad, flat head and a long, tapered body that ends in wide, triangular flukes.

Blue whales live in all the world's oceans , except the Arctic, occasionally swimming in small groups but usually alone or in pairs. They often spend summers feeding in polar waters and undertake lengthy migrations towards the Equator as winter arrives. These graceful swimmers cruise the ocean at more than five miles an hour , but accelerate to more than 20 miles an hour when they are agitated.

Blue whales are among the loudest animals on the planet. Scientists think they use these vocalizations not only to communicate, but, along with their excellent hearing, to sonar-navigate the lightless ocean depths. Calves enter the world already ranking among the planet's largest creatures.

After about a year inside its mother's womb, a baby blue whale emerges weighing up to 3 tons and stretching to 25 feet. It gorges on nothing but mother's milk and gains about pounds every day for its first year.

Blue whales are among Earth's longest-lived animals. Scientists have discovered that by counting the layers of a deceased whale's waxlike earplugs, they can get a close estimate of the animal's age. The oldest blue whale found using this method was determined to be around years old.

Average lifespan is estimated at around 80 to 90 years. Aggressive hunting in the s by whalers seeking whale oil drove them to the brink of extinction.

Between and the mids, some , blue whales were slaughtered. Scientists know little about the life history of the blue whale. The best available science suggests the gestation period is approximately 10 to 12 months.

Weaning probably occurs at around 6 to 7 months on, or en route to, summer feeding areas. The age of sexual maturity is thought to be 5 to 15 years. Most reproductive activity, including births and mating, takes place during the winter. The average calving interval is probably 2 to 3 years.

Vessel strikes can injure or kill blue whales. Vessel strikes have killed blue whales throughout their range, but the risk is much higher in some coastal areas with heavy vessel traffic, like ports and in shipping lanes, and from larger vessels and vessels traveling at high speeds. Blue whales can become entangled in fishing gear, either swimming off with the gear attached or becoming anchored. Blue whales can become entangled in many different gear types, including traps, pots, and nets.

Once entangled, whales may drag the attached gear for long distances, ultimately resulting in fatigue, compromised feeding ability, or severe injury, which may lead to reduced reproductive success and death. Additional possible threats to blue whales that are less understood include ocean noise , habitat degradation, pollution, vessel disturbance, and climate change. Our work strives to protect blue whales by:.

Our research projects have helped us better understand blue whales and the challenges they face. Our work includes:. Be responsible when viewing marine life in the wild. Observe all small whales from a safe distance of at least yards by sea or land. In Washington State inland waters, it is illegal to approach a killer whale within yards. Please visit Be Whale Wise for more specific instructions. Learn more about our marine life viewing guidelines. Report a sick, injured, entangled, stranded, or dead animal to make sure professional responders and scientists know about it and can take appropriate action.

Numerous organizations around the country are trained and ready to respond. Never approach or try to save an injured or entangled animal yourself—it can be dangerous to both the animal and you.

Learn who you should contact when you encounter a stranded or injured marine animal. Vessel collisions are a major cause of injury and death for whales. Here are some tips to avoid collisions:. Watch your speed in areas of known marine mammal occurrence. Keep speeds to 10 knots or less to reduce potential for injury.

Keep a sharp lookout. Look for blows, dorsal fins, tail flukes, etc. However, be aware that most captains report never seeing a whale prior to colliding with it. Protect your boat, protect your passengers. Boats can be heavily damaged and even "totalled" after colliding with a large whale. Collisions can also injure passengers. Stop immediately if within yards. Slowly distance your vessel from the whale. Learn more about vessel strikes. This hotline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for anyone in the United States.

NOAA Fisheries is working to protect this species in many ways. The ultimate goal of the Blue Whale Recovery Plan is to recover the species, with an interim goal of downlisting its status from endangered to threatened. This consists of six objectives:. A primary strategy of the Recovery Plan, revised in , is to maintain the international ban on commercial hunting that was instituted in Additionally, this Plan provides a strategy to improve our understanding of how potential threats may be limiting blue whale recovery.

Finally, this plan provides a research strategy to obtain data necessary to determine blue whale taxonomy, population structure, distribution, and habitat, which can then inform estimation of population abundance and trends. Once the populations and their threats are more fully understood, this plan will be modified to include actions to minimize any threats determined to be limiting recovery. Because blue whales move freely across international borders, recovery efforts are not confined to U.

Thus, this plan stresses the importance of a multinational approach to management. Collisions between whales and vessels can injure or kill the whales and damage the vessels, but they often go unnoticed and unreported. NOAA Fisheries has taken both regulatory and non-regulatory steps to reduce the threat of vessel collisions with whales. Precautions that vessel operators can take include:. Learn when the seasonal abundance of large whales are in shipping lanes; listen and be aware of advisories.

Keep a sharp lookout for whales, including posting additional crew lookouts on the bow, if possible. The most effective way to reduce collision risk is to keep whales and vessels separated by great distances; where this is not possible, vessels need to slow down and keep a lookout.

Learn more vessel strikes and marine mammals. We work with volunteer networks in all coastal states to respond to marine mammal strandings including all whales. When stranded animals are found dead, our scientists work to understand and investigate the cause of death.