What a whopper!

The largest animals ever to have been on the earth are still living today!

Most children think dinosaurs were the biggest, but in fact the Blue Whale is much bigger. How big? Well, one Blue Whale was measured at nearly 34 metres long! It probably weighed more than 220 tonnes!

Everything about the Blue Whale is big! Even its tongue may weigh up to four tonnes! They also call to each other in big voices. They can be heard over 800 kilometres away. They are easily the loudest living creatures.

Does it make you wonder what such a huge animal eats? Blue Whale feed on small fish and ‘krill’. Krill are tiny animals like shrimp. A Blue Whale strains them out of the water with a special ‘rake’ inside its mouth. One whale may eat up to four tonnes of krill a day.

Bacause they are mammals (like humans) ,Blue Whales breathe air. This means they must come to the surface of the water to breathe. The ‘waterspout’ a whale blows is not really water at all—it is hot breathe and water vapour.

Whales are also warm-blooded. Mothers feed their babies on milk from their bodies. By the time they are a year old, those ‘babies’ may weigh more than 20 tonnes! They can live up to 45 years.

Whales were once hunted in all the world’s sea. So many were killed, they were in danger of becoming extinct. Today, most countries have made laws to stop whales being killed, although some still hunt these gentle giants for food and oil.