Facts about whales

The most-most ... The longest, most severe, life giving the loudest sounds of animals on our planet - whales. They have the largest brain. Their length reaches 33 meters and weigh up to 150 tons. They make the best long-lasting and migration. Some of them can not sleep for three months and "fast" two-thirds of the year.

The largest ever caught whales, appeared female caught near the South Shetland Islands. Its length from the fork of the caudal fin to the tip of the snout was 33, 27 meters, and weight kg 176 792.

The blue whale - the largest animal without a doubt ever existed on the planet. Weight of the adult whale can be more than twice the weight of the Brachiosaurus, the largest of the dinosaurs ancient times (81 500 kg), and about thirty times - the weight of the modern male African elephant.

Head blue whale so wide that complete professional soccer team - about 50 people - could stand on his tongue. His heart is as big as a small car (Volkswagen Beetle). Heart big blue whale weighs 600-700 kg, he should pump about 8000 liters of blood reaches the diameter dorsal aorta diameter bucket and lungs are able to hold up to 14 m3 of air. For a second or two whale inhales and exhales about 2,000 liters of air. They dive with ease the enormous depth. If necessary, blue whales can stay underwater without breathing for 40 minutes. When a whale is going to dive, sometimes to a depth of over 1,000 m, it becomes vertical in the water upside down, so that rises above the surface of only one tail fin. It looks like a sail. Whales have no external ears. Instead, they get the sound through their lower jaw. Sound is carried through from the jaw cavity to the middle and inner ears.

An adult blue whale consumes about a million calories a day, which corresponds to 1 tonne of krill, a small shrimp-like crustacean, the basis of his diet.

Blue Whale used to surf the oceans, traveling alone, sometimes in pairs, and can live up to 120 years. Whales - the only non-human mammal that ... singing. Many of them emit a low cooing sounds, and humpback and right whales poyut- "song" - a series of repeating in sequence of different sounds. First we thought that only males sing, but there is evidence that females sing songs to their babies.

Gestation lasts about 11 months. The calf is born length 7, 6 m and weighing 2-3 m, while the female egg blue whale largest such as a mouse. During the day it adds to the weight of 80-100 kg, and 2-3 cm in length, about 380 liters of drinking breast milk. Females fed them with milk for about 7 months. During this period the baby grows up to 16 meters and has a mass of 23 tons. During 7 months of breast feeding females emit so much milk that the amount equal to the weight of its own body.

Whalebone - this horny plates on the upper jaw toothless whales (up to 800 pieces), which were applied and used in the manufacture of corsets and various gaskets to maintain the shape of clothes. On corset Baroque required was a kilogram of whalebone. This material is used in such demand that in the Netherlands in 1772 was based society comes whalebone in all European countries.

Whales are easily distinguished each other in the pack. But for a man it is a difficult task, as he sees them only a moment. How to learn to distinguish the whales, to be able to follow them? Scientists believe: the tail. Biologists have found that the tails of whales are as individual as fingerprints in humans. They are easily distinguishable cuts and grooves, scars from the bites of killer whales, kelp spots create a unique pattern.

Once blue whales scoured all the oceans of the world; and assumptions only in Antarctica, there were up to 250,000 of these creatures. However, in recent years he has left a ruthless fishing less than 1% of the above figures. Determine the total number of these huge animals is very difficult, so the magnitude of the Antarctic blue whale populations by modern estimates ranging from a few hundred to 11,000 But whatever the exact figure, it is in any case, it seems dangerous low compared to the number that existed before.