Unlike other mammals, it’s nearly impossibly to tranquilize one and examine it in the field–let alone take it back to the lab for closer inspection–so scientist have only a limited amount of data. Whales are incredibly difficult to study. With krill populations dwindling and major changes to the habitat of several species of baleen whales like the bullhead, it is not yet clear how these factors are affecting whale populations. And, if lucky enough to find a dense cloud of krill, one swallow can collect upwards of half a million calories, enough energy to feed an average adult male for two hundred and fifty days!Īlong with their incredible properties, baleen has garnered the attention of scientists for other reasons.
Swimming from one location to another, baleen allows whales to passively gather resources with little energy expenditure. Hunting singular prey can exhaust precious calories and time, especially when prey becomes limited or extinct. In the ocean, baleen combs have clear advantages over traditional teeth. In some species of whale, baleen combs can grow up to eleven feet long and weigh two-hundred pounds. Comprised of keratin, a fibrous protein found in human fingernails and hair, baleen combs allow whales to swallow and expel large amounts of seawater while retaining their main food source, krill. The answer, according to many scientist, is in their mouths.īlue whales belong to a group known as mysticetes, which is a subset of whales that possess baleen combs.īaleen is a filtration system toothless whales rely on to collect food. Like many of their biological relatives, blue whales didn’t start as giants, but developed their massive bulk perhaps three million years ago - an impressively short amount of time by evolutionary standards, and at a growth rate twice that of land mammals.
With hearts the size of a car, and tongues that weigh as much as an elephant, their incredible evolutionary development has long been of interest to scientists. Blue whales are the largest animals to have ever lived on our planet.
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