Blue Whale
The blue whale is a type of mammal called a cetacean and is a type of baleen whale. The scientific name for the blue whale is the Balaenoptera musculus. Blue whales are by far the biggest animals in the world. Even the biggest dinosaur that ever lived doesn't come close in size to the blue whale.
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Diet
To eat, blue whales filter their food through stiff, bony, comb-like teeth called baleen plates. Their main diet is krill (small creatures that are less than 2 cm in size). A blue whale can eat up to 3,600 kilograms of krill a day during its peak consumption period. Blue whales catch their food by diving down to about 500 meters below the surface.
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Habitat
Blue whales are found in open oceans from the icy waters of the extreme Southern Hemisphere to the Aleutian Islands off Alaska at the northern boundary of the Pacific Ocean. Summers are spent in polar waters because food production is higher there.
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Appearance
Blue whales are simply enormous. Their heart is the size of a small car. A blue whale aorta (the main blood vessel) alone is large enough for a human to crawl through. They can weigh over 200,000 kilograms! Female blue whales are generally larger than males. Blue whales are light bluish gray on their dorsal side and mottled gray whitish on their bellies. Some have yellowish bellies.
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Endangered species
The worldwide blue whale population is not known, however, blue whales are considered endangered according to the U.S. Endangered Species Act. For many years blue whales were hunted extensively for their large quantities of baleen, blubber, and meat. Although blue whales are protected, their populations show few signs of recovery.
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Blue whales are large mammals that spends their time in the icy oceans. They only eat krill and are not a threat to any other creature in the ocean. Blue whales face the risk of extinction if humans continue to hunt them for their baleen, blubber and meat.
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We have been learning to understand the structure for a information report. We needed to highlight the different kind of features different colours.
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