There are some very well known blue whale facts, like the fact that it is the largest mammal on the earth. There also some things that are less well known. For example, how large they actually are. The longest blue whale recorded was a female which was caught in the Antarctica and measured 
108 feet from nose to tail. She probably weighed around 150 tons. A more normal weight for a blue whale in the Southern Hemisphere is 80 – 100 tons. In the Northern Hemisphere they tend to be a little smaller and it would be rare to find one more than about 80 feet in length.
When it comes to feeding, you would expect the largest mammal on the planet to eat something fairly substantial from the food chain. One of the most surprising blue whale facts is about their diet. Not only do they not eat large fish, but they opt for some of the smallest fish and live almost entirely on tiny prawn like animals called krill. Needless to say, they do have to consume quite a number of these krill to satisfy their dietary needs and can get through around 40 million a day. That is about 4 tons – the same weight as a Ford Excursion SUV. Read the rest of this entry »
