The blue whale

Blue whale

The biggest animal ever
The blue whale is probably the biggest animal that has ever lived on Earth. It is hard to imagine how big they are, but have a look at the scale on the picture - that's an adult human being standing next to it! Here are a few quick facts*.

Maximum length as adult - 110 feet - that's about 30 metres
Maximum length when born - 23 feet - that's about 7 metres
Adult diet - can eat up to four tonnes of krill a day - that's about 40 million individual krill a day
Newborn diet - can drink up to 50 gallons of milk a day - that's almost 200 litres of milk a day
A blue whale's eye is about the size of a tea cup
The tongue of a blue whale can be the size of a small car
A blue whale is equal in weight to 30 bull elephants or about 1830 adult humans

*Courtesy of the American Cetacean Society and the Whale Center of New England

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