10 Cool Facts About Blue Whales

Blue Whale by NOAA
Blue Whale photo by: NOAA

1. Blue Whales are the largest animal to have ever lived on Earth. They are larger than any dinosaurs were.

2. Blue Whales can grow to 100 feet long (30.5 meters) long. That’s as long as 20 school children laying down end-to-end!

3. Blue Whales weigh as much as 26 adult bull elephants (about 200 tons).

4. Blue Whales eat up to 40 million krill (a small kind of shrimp) a day, or about 8,000 pounds (3,629 kg). That’s the equivalent of eating 32,000 quarter pound hamburgers a day!

5. A Blue Whale’s heart is the size and weight of a compact car. It pumps a whopping 60 gallons per beat.

6. A Blue Whale can live over 80 years.

7. The deep rumbling sounds from a Blue Whale can travel for thousands of miles under the sea.

8. Before whaling, there were 250,000 Blue Whales on Earth. Now there are less than 10,000.

9. A Blue Whale calf (baby) gains 250 pounds (113 kg) a day just from its mother’s milk!

10. Central California, USA has the largest concentration of Blue Whales in the world. There are about 2,000 there seasonally.