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If you think that the dinosaur is the largest animal to have ever lived on this planet of ours called Earth, then think again. It is actually the Blue Whale and although this creature lives in the sea, it breathes oxygen from the air through its blow holes and is a mammal not a fish.

Even though it lives in the sea, like a dolphin it breathes air and it can stay under water for as long as an hour, diving to depths of 350 ft. It is also a very noisy animal and the sound it makes is bigger than that of a jet engine, it calls its friends at 188 decibels.

These animals are carnivorous, and they eat tons of the tiniest food imaginable. Their diet is made up of plankton, krill, small fish and other tiny organisms. They feed mostly in winter, when they can be found in arctic seas and eat as much as 4100 tons of food a day. Blue whales are rorqual so they use baleen to sieve their food from the thousands of liters of water they suck into throat grooves.

It is blue gray and the underside of the whale varies in color. It also weighs as much as 120 tons, although much larger specimens have been found. Another strange fact is that baleen whales are larger if they are female. They have a layer of fat called blubber which can be from 2 - 14 inches thick, and a heart which weights 1000 lbs and is the size of a VW bug.

Blue whales often live alone, but they are also seen swimming in small pods and quite regularly as pairs. If frightened they can swim as fast as 30 miles per hour, but generally they just cruise along at about 3mph, quite happily while they are feeding. You can find these whales in any ocean throughout the entire world and they spend most of their time on the surface.

Winter is the Blue Whale breeding season and the mother gestates the baby for about 12 months. They are born live and tail first in warm shallow water, and the mother helps the baby surface, to breathe which it does instinctively. They are born weighing six to eight tons, are 25′ long and mature at 10 -15 years of age. Man and killer whales are their only known predators.

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