Common name: Blue Whale

Type: Mamal

Family: Balaenopteridae

Range: When you consider about the range of this Blue Whale, it normally resides in Ocean throughout the world. You can see this marine mammal in the Southern Ocean, Indian Ocean, North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocean. The largest population of Blue Whales was normally in the Antarctic Ocean in the range of 239,000, before the whaling.

Size: Blue Whales are usually in the length of 30 meters and Weigh around 170 tonnes or more than that

Diet: When you consider about the feeding of Blue Whales, they normally eat krill and also copepods in small numbers. The zooplankton of this species, which have been eaten by Blue Whale varied from ocean to ocean depending on the availability. The quantity of krill that can be consumed by an adult Blue Whale would be 40 million in a day.

Average lifespan: Most of the scientists estimated that the average lifespan of this animal would be 80 years. But, because of whaling it is not always the most efficient case in most and hence determined as 34 years.

Habitat: These Blue Whales normally live alone or along with only one individual as a companion. But, it is not possible to determine about the longevity of their pair as traveling together. You can see the group of 50 blue whales in the particular place, where the food concentration is high and they have scattered around that small area to get their food as the best and efficient one. Compared to other baleen species available, they never prefer to form the close-knit and large groups for any purpose.

When you consider about the traveling speed of these animals, usually they can reach speeds about 50km per hour over the short bursts in order to interact with other whales. The speed of 20km per hour is treated as the typical traveling speed and they slowed down to 5km per hour at the time of feeding.

Breeding/Reproduction: When you go through the breeding of this Blue Whale, the mating season would probably be started at the time of autumn and it continues until the end of winter. They have known about their mating behavior and other breeding grounds in a little. The gestation period of this marine mammal would be about 10 to 12 months and the female whale would give birth to calf once in every two to three years. Normally a calf would be weighed around 2.5 metric tons and with the length of 7 meter or 23 ft. The food of calves would be 380 to 570 liter of milk in a day.

The calf would probably get the maturity to go out of their parents after six months from birth and at that time the length of it would be doubled. Blue whales would get the sexual maturity at the age of five to ten years.

Compared to other whales with stockier build body available in the ocean, the body of blue whale would be long tapering one and also as stretched. This animal has the head as flat and U-shaped one along with the prominent ridge that could be run from the blowhole to the top of its upper lip available. When you consider about the mouth, it has thick with baleen plates in the front part of the mouth that could hang from the upper jaw along with the running speed of 0.5m back into the mouth. It would probably run along its throat as parallel to the body length that too between the amounts of grooves called as the ventral pleats as 70 and 118. These pleats are necessary to make over the evacuation of water from the mouth that too after the feeding of lunge.

The dorsal fin of a blue whale is usually at the height of 20 to 40 cm or 7.9 to 16 inches and also as ranging from the 8 to 70 cm or 3.1 to 28 inches. The average height of this dorsal fin would be 28 cm or 11 inches. This could probably be visible only at the time of the dive sequence because it is normally located around the body that too at three-quarters of the way along its length. The shape would probably be varied depending on the shape of one individual to another and it has the lump as barely perceptible one. Another kind of whales has the dorsal as facet and prominent one.

At the time of breathing, the shoulder of blue whale would probably raise and also the blowhole out of the water in order to extend as a greater one compared to other large whales including the fin or sei whales. This trait is normally helpful for the observers to make the differentiation between the species at sea.

Some of the species would probably fluke their tail at the time of diving. The whale would probably emit the single-column of spectacular vertical spout that too, up to 12 m and it may be 9 m typically, during the time of breathing. Blue whales have the lung capacity of about 5,000 liter or 1320 U.S. gallons. The twin blowholes of them would be shielded by a large splashguard for the efficient protection.

When you consider about the flippers, they have them as length of up to 3 to 4 m. The flippers are in the color of gray on the upper sides along with the thin white border. It also has the lower sides in the color of white. Blue whales have their tail and head generally colored as Gray that too uniformly. This animal is available with the mottled upper parts and sometimes mottled flippers too. Every individual has the degree of mottling as differed one. Some of the species available with the mottling as uniform slate-gray color and in some species it may be varied with the color including gray, black and dark blue as tightly mottled one.

Since the blue whales are available in the Costa Rica sea-sides, During your trip to Costa Rica it would be better to watch the diving of them.