SELECT REGION

Blue Whales

Blue whales travel as slow as two miles an hour but, when circumstances warrant, can swim as fast as thirty miles per hour

Blue whales are not blue. As the sun shines on this glorious creature when it swims near the water’s surface, its mottled bluish-gray body with lighter gray mottling appears so, giving the species its name. Bigger than the dinosaurs, the blue whale is the largest animal ever to have inhabited our planet, growing up to 100 feet in length and weighing over 100 tons. Visitors on whale watching tours will have several other ways to recognize the blue whale. This rorqual baleen is distinguished by its flat head and a less prominent dorsal fin than that of the fin whale species it resembles. The blue whale’s blow holes project a vertical blow thirty to forty feet, and the species shows its fluke when it dives. Blues may be seen alone or traveling in groups of three or four, an extraordinary sight on whale watching tours to South America. While listeners describe the sounds of some baleen species as “singing,” the blue whale communicates in what sounds more like a moan that carries 100 miles.

Return to Previous Page

Information about Blue Whales

Near the surface, the blue whale travels as slow as two miles an hour and when circumstances warrant, can swim as fast as thirty miles per hour. Its jaw contains 250 to 400 pairs of baleen plates. Feeding seasonally, it subsists on a diet of krill and other crustaceans, consuming perhaps eight million krill a day, entrapping its prey against the bodies of its fellow blues. Blues make some shallow dives, blowing in between, before diving deeper and staying submerged as long as thirty minutes.

After reaching maturity at age ten, blue whales breed every three years. Gestation lasts almost twelve months. Calves are weaned at between six and eight months of age. Blues have a life span of between thirty-five and eighty years.

Of the world’s three distinct populations of blue whales, one inhabits the southern hemisphere. These whales generally spend summers feeding near the Antarctic ice edge as well as near sub-Antarctic islands and on open sea before migrating to sub-tropical and tropical waters during the winter to breed and give birth. Exactly where they breed is still being studied. This geographical pattern makes watching blues most likely on Chile tours, Antarctica tours.

Because the blue whale provided more oil than any other whale species, and whale oil was the most coveted of whaling products, the blue used to be the catch of choice. By the time the International Whaling Commission banned the blue’s commercial slaughter in 1966, it had reached the verge of extinction. Of a population that once numbered in the hundreds of thousands in the southern hemisphere, it is estimated that around 1,000 blue whales inhabit these waters today. Though numbers are believed to be increasing each year, blues must still contend with packs of orcas that attack their young and human activities that disturb their habitat or injure them.

SOUTHERN EXPLORATIONS
IS A PROUD
MEMBER / SPONSOR / AWARDEE OF THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS