Here’s a whale of a tale
The blue whale is the biggest animal ever to have lived on Earth.
World Whale Day was founded on 13 February 1980 in Maui, Hawaii to celebrate humpback whales which swim off it’s coast.
Humpback whales are also the main showcase of the Maui Whale Festival every year. Here are some other whale facts for your entertainment:
1.The blue whale is the biggest animal ever to have lived on Earth, the biggest measured being a female in the Antarctic who was 30.5 meters long.
2. Blue whales are pregnant for 10 to 12 months, the newborn baby drinking about 225 liters of it’s mothers 40 to 50 per cent fat milk every day. It gains nearly four kilograms an hour and reaches maturity at 10 to 15 years of age.
3. The deepest diver is the Cuvier’s beaked whale which dives three kilometers deep for over two hours. The sperm whale also dives very deep reaching up to 2 kilometers.
4. The thickest blubber belongs to the bowhead whale and is 70 centimeters thick, the largest testicles belongs to the Southern right whale which weighs a tonne and the most urine is passed by the fin whale who urinates up to 970 liters per day.
5. The most endangered whales are the North Atlantic right whale with 400 to 500 whales left and the Western Pacific grey whale with 150 whales left.
6. The most famous whale is the 52-hertz whale, an individual whale that calls at an unusually high frequency of 52 hertz. She has been detected since the 1980s and seems to be the only whale calling at this frequency, earning her the title of loneliest whale in the world.
Have you ever seen a whale?
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