Because the blue whale's tail is broad and flat and its entire body is streamlined, it looks like a razor, so it is also called the razor whale.
The body of the blue whale is extremely huge. Its tongue alone can weigh up to two thousand kilograms, its skull can weigh up to three thousand kilograms, its liver can weigh up to one thousand kilograms, and even its heart can weigh up to five hundred kilograms, which is much larger than an adult man.
In addition, it is said that the blue whale's blood circulation volume can reach more than 8,000 kilograms.
If the intestines of an adult blue whale were stretched out, they would be three hundred meters long.
Xiang Yang once saw a one-to-one scale model of a blue whale's blood vessels in the laboratory.
The blood vessels of a blue whale are thick enough to hold a child, and the walls are more than 60 centimeters thick.
Such a huge heart and blood vessels provide the blue whale with immense power.
The blue whale is incredibly powerful, with a power of over 1,500 horsepower, making it a well-deserved giant and strongman in the animal world.
Judging from the size of this adult blue whale, its weight should be about thirty times that of an African elephant, which is considered huge among blue whales.
The average length of a blue whale is only 25 meters, and there are not many that are over 30 meters.
Female whales are generally larger than male whales, and southern blue whales are generally larger than northern blue whales.
This blue whale is able to grow to such a large size because it is a female southern blue whale. Otherwise, it would be difficult for it to grow to this size.
Xiang Yang discovered that this blue whale was different from other types of whales he had seen.
Other species of whales, including humpbacks, appear short and stocky.
The blue whale's body is long and vertebral, looking like an elongated, enlarged humpback whale.
In addition, the dorsal fin of this blue whale is very small, so small that people on the boat cannot see it at all. It is said that the dorsal fin of the blue whale is only visible for a short time when the blue whale is diving.
Xiang Yang stared carefully at the back of the blue whale. No matter how he looked at it, he felt that this blue whale had no dorsal fin.
On the back of this blue whale, Xiang Yang only saw a barely visible bulge.
However, the other fins are very eye-catching.
The blue whale appears to be surfacing to breathe, raising its shoulder and blowhole area much higher than other large whales, and spewing out spectacular vertical columns of water up to ten metres in height from time to time.
Xiang Yang could easily feel the terrifying power of the water column while standing on a boat several hundred meters away.
It is said that the blue whale's lung capacity can reach a terrifying 5,000 liters, equivalent to 5,000 bottles of one liter mineral water.
“Woo—”
After seeing Xiang Yang and his huge fleet, the huge blue whale let out a low, somewhat sad and melodious whale cry, which seemed very sad at first glance.
At the same time, Xiang Yang also saw the blue whale's tongue through its open mouth.
The tongue of this blue whale is very large. Xiang Yang estimates that 50 people can stand on it.
Xiang Yang couldn't help but think of a passage he had read in a textbook before: a blue whale's heart is as big as a car, a baby can crawl through a blue whale's artery, and a newborn blue whale calf is heavier than an adult elephant.
"Brother Yang, can blue whales survive in Antarctica?" Fang Youqun poked Xiang Yang's shoulder and asked in confusion.
Xiang Yang rolled his eyes helplessly. He had already seen blue whales in Antarctica, so why was he still asking such a question
However, Xiang Yang still patiently replied: "The intersection of warm and cold waters is an excellent habitat for blue whales. Cold waters are usually rich in plankton and krill, and blue whales usually feed on these two organisms. Blue whales are distributed worldwide, and the largest number of blue whales is distributed in the Antarctic waters."
Outside of Antarctica, the bays where blue whales live are mostly filled with extremely rich organic matter from river water that rushes into the ocean from land, making the water very fertile and promoting the massive reproduction of plankton.
The dense plankton attracts a large number of small fish and shrimps.
The blue whale's stomach is divided into four parts. The first stomach is formed by the expansion of the esophagus, so its appetite is very large and it can swallow 2 million krill at a time.
An adult blue whale eats 4,000 to 8,000 kilograms of food every day.
If a blue whale has less than 2,000 kilograms of food in its stomach, it will feel hungry.
Krill are the most numerous animals in the world and are widely distributed in the Antarctic and Arctic waters. It is precisely because of such abundant food and the fact that they live in water without the restriction of supporting their weight that blue whales can grow so huge.
In Antarctica, blue whales spend most of their time every day swimming with their mouths wide open among dense plankton. The two rows of plate-like barbels on their mouths are like sieves, and their stomachs have many folds like accordion bellows that can expand and contract, allowing them to swallow seawater and krill together. Then they close their mouths to allow the seawater to drain out from the gaps between the barbels, filtering out small shrimps and fish to eat.
In addition to rock crabs, the blue whale's food also includes other shrimps, small fish, jellyfish, diatoms, and various plankton. In comparison, the blue whale living in the northern waters is smaller than that living in the waters near the Antarctic, which is closely related to the types and quantities of its food.
Although blue whales live in the ocean, they breathe with lungs like other mammals.
The blue whale's lungs weigh more than 1,000 kilograms and can hold more than 1,000 liters of air.
Such a large lung capacity greatly reduces the number of times the blue whale breathes, and it only surfaces to breathe about once every fifteen minutes.
When breathing, the blue whale first expels carbon dioxide and other waste gases in the lungs through the nostrils, and then inhales fresh oxygen.
Whenever the blue whale's head emerges from the water to breathe and expel carbon dioxide and other waste gases from the body, a powerful stream of hot air will rush out of its nostrils, the jet can reach a height of ten meters, and will also sweep the nearby seawater out of the sea.
When a blue whale sprays water, a spectacular column of water appears on the blue sea. From a distance, it looks like a fountain on the sea. At the same time, it makes a loud sound like a train whistle. This is the most authentic whale spray.
People generally determine the location of blue whales based on the sound they make when they blow, and the height and shape of their blows.
What makes Xiang Yang feel regretful is that although blue whales live in all oceans, they are extremely rarely seen in my country's waters.
There have been records of blue whales appearing in my country's Yellow Sea and South China Sea, but no one has spotted them in Chinese waters in recent years.
The blue whale is not a good diver. It usually dives no deeper than 100 meters at a time, and very few individuals can dive to a depth of 500 meters. However, the diving time can last about 20 minutes, and it will exhale eight to fifteen times in succession when breathing.