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B. musculus
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Population : 10,000-25,000
individuals
Habitat
: Ocean
Blue Whale or Balaenoptera musculus Is the biggest animal in the world,
The long can reach 33 meter and the weight can be more than 120 ton, It’s very
heavy right, The tail is about 7 meter and the (sirip) is about 5 meter.
Whale is not the tipe of the fish or as we know as a
pisces phylum. It is a mammae animal . So It’s do respiration with lung like
human. The whale has a hot blood while It’s in a very cold water.
Reproduction
Males are
called 'bulls', females, 'cows' and all newborns, 'calves'. Most species do not
maintain fixed reproductive partnerships. Females have several mates each
season.
The female
usually delivers a single calf, which is birthed tail-first to minimize the
risk of drowning. Whale cows nurse by squirting milk into the mouths of their
young. This milk is so rich in fat that it has the consistency of toothpaste. In
many species, nursing continues for more than a year and is associated with a
strong bond between mother and calf. Reproductive maturity typically occurs at
seven to ten years. This mode of reproduction produces few
offspring, but increases the survival probability of each one.
Socialization
Whales are
known to teach, learn, cooperate, scheme, and even grieve. The neocortex of
many species of whale is home to elongated spindle
neurons that, prior to 2007, were known only in hominids. In humans
these cells are involved in social conduct, emotions, judgment, and theory of
mind. Whale spindle neurons are found in areas of the brain that are homologous
to where they are found in humans, suggesting that they perform a similar
function.
Sleep
A humpback
whale breaching
A 2008 study
found that wild sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus)
sleep in vertical postures just under the surface in passive shallow
'drift-dives', generally during the day, during which whales do not respond to
passing vessels unless they are in contact, leading to the suggestion that
whales possibly sleep during such dives.
ECOLOGY
"Whale
pump" - the role played by whales in nutrient recycling in the oceans
Whales are
considered as "marine ecosystem engineers" for the following reasons:[34]
- Whales are major consumers of fish and oceanic invertebrates.
- Whales act as reservoirs of nutrients, such as iron and nitrogen, and they recycle them both horizontally and vertically in the water column.
- Whale detritus provides energy and habitat for deep sea organisms.
Feeding
Whales
generally are classed as predators. Their food ranges from microscopic plankton
to very large animals.
Toothed
whales eat fish and squid, which they hunt by the use of echolocation. Killer whales
sometimes eat other marine mammals, including whales.
Baleen
whales, such as humpbacks and blues, mainly eat krill when feeding in the
higher latitudes (such as the Southern Ocean). They take in enormous amounts of
seawater that they expel through their baleen plates; the krill in the seawater
are retained on the plates and then swallowed.. Whales do not drink
seawater. They extract water indirectly from their food by metabolizing fat.
Whale pump
A 2010 study
considered whales to be a positive influence to the productivity of ocean
fisheries, in what has been termed a "whale pump." Whales carry
nutrients such as nitrogen from the depths back to the surface. This functions
as an upward biological pump, reversing an earlier presumption that whales
accelerate the loss of nutrients to the bottom. This nitrogen input in the Gulf
of Maine is "more than the input of all rivers combined" emptying
into the gulf, some 23,000 metric tons each year.[35][36] Whales defecate
at the oceans surface and this excrement is important for fisheries because it
is rich in iron and nitrogen. The whale feces are liquid and instead of
sinking, they stay at the surface where phytoplankton
feed off it.
Whale fall
Upon death,
whale carcasses fall to the deep ocean and being massive, with body weights of
the range 30 to 160 tonnes (30,000 to 160,000 kg), provide a substantial
habitat for marine creatures. Evidence of whale falls in present day and fossil
records shows that deep sea whale falls support a rich assemblage of creatures,
with a global diversity of 407 species as per Smith & Baco (2003),
comparable to other neritic biodiversity hotspots, such as cold seeps
and hydrothermal vents.
Deterioration
of whale carcasses happens though a series of three stages. Initially, moving
organisms such as sharks
and hagfish,
scavenge the soft tissues at a rapid rate over a period of months, and as long
as two years. This is followed by the colonisation of bones and surrounding
sediments (which contain organic matter) by enrichment opportunists, such as crustaceans
and polychaetes,
throughout a period of years. Finally, sulfophilic bacteria
reduce the bones releasing hydrogen
sulfide enabling the growth of chemoautotrophic
organisms, which in turn, support other organisms such as mussels, clams,
limpets, and sea snails. This stage may last for decades and supports a rich
assemblage of species, averaging 185 species per site as per Smith & Baco
(2003).
FACTS
ABOUT BLUE WHALE
Did you
know?
·
When a blue
whale exhales, the spray from its blowhole can reach nearly 30 ft (9m) into the
air.
·
The
blue whale is the largest animal on the planet.
·
It’s
weighing as much as 200 tons (approximately 33 elephants).
·
The
blue whale has a heart the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.
·
Its
stomach can hold one ton of krill and it needs to eat about four tons of krill
each day. They are the loudest animals on Earth and are even louder than a jet
engine.
·
Their
calls reach 188 decibels, while a jet reaches 140 decibels.
·
Their
low frequency whistle can be heard for hundreds of miles and is probably used
to attract other blue whales.
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