Whales and Dolphins
Whales : Blue Whale, Killer Whale, Humpback Whale, Minke Whale, Sperm Whale, Fin Whale
The world's largest blue whale colony is in Sri Lanka. Hundreds of the blue whales are gathering in Indian ocean. They feed on tiny plank tonic crustaceans krill. These foods are available in large quantities in the Indian ocean. The whales are marine mammals of the order cetacean having a stream lined body and horizontal tail and breathing air through a blow whole on the head. The weight of the matured blue whale is about 200 tongs. The length is around 27-30 meters. Blue whale has four chambered heart resemble to a Volkswagen bug car a human can crawl through the main artery. Blue whales feed on 03 or 04 tons of krill a day.
Blue whale
The whale is the largest and most majestic animal to ever inhabit our planet. The blue whale is enormous and is named after the blue gray colour of it's skin. It is the largest animal ever to be recorded on earth. They can grow to 100 feet long and weigh up to 150 tones. Which is a heavy as a Boeing jet plus their heart is the size of a small car. Their dorsal fins are extremely small their pectoral flippers long and thing. A blue whale's blow hole is capable of shooting water up to at least 30 feet when it surfaced for air. Another blue whale fact it has been speculates that this spices may also sounds to communicate with other whales and to find a mate.
The blue whales feeds through a comb like strainer of some 400 plates with bristles to capture the tiny morsels of food as the whale swims in order to get enough to eat a blue whale can expand it's throat to take in as much as 50 tones of water in one gulp.
Killer whale
The killer whale is the world's biggest dolphin. The large male killer whale can eat up to 220 pounds(100kg) of a food a day. The killer whales hunt fish squid birds stingrays sea otters and even other whales. Killer whales have 40 to 56 inter locking teeth each one around three inches long, they are conical shaped and used for ripping and tearing. But not chewing or eat their food in chunks or entirely whole. They grow an average of 19 feet(5.8 meters)in length. Though specimens exceeding 30 feet (9 meters) and weighting up to 22000 pounds (10000 kilo grams)have been recorded. Killer whales can swim at speed of up to 35 miles per hour56(kilo meters)per hour. Killer whale can live for an average of 50 to 80 year.
Humpback whale
The humpback whale can be distinguished by it's large size,knobbly head and 5 meter long flippers. The bumps found on the head are called tubercles and each one contains single hair follicle which may be used in a sensory capacity. Much like cat's whiskers.
The wavy edged flukes are raised during dives.
male humpback sing the longest most complex songs in the animal kingdom songs consist is of a complex series of whistles. Squeals and deep sonorous calls divided in to verses and sung in a specific order. Which may last for as long as half an hour. Humpback whales make long journeys each population of humpbacks has it's own migration routs.
Minke whale
Minke whales are the smallest and most abundant of the rorqnas whales. They have a sharply pointed snout straight mouth line and long ridge alone the head with two blowholes.
They have hundreds of baleen plates 20 to 30 CM long growing from their jaws from their throat and ending just past their flippers.
Sperm whale
Sperm whales are easily recognized by their massive heads are prominent rounded foreheads. They have the largest brain of any creature known to have lived on earth. Their hands also hold large quantities of a substance called spermaceti one common theory is that the fluids which harden to wax when cold helps the whales alter it's buoyancy, so it can dive deep and raise again. Sperm whales are known to dive as deep as 3280 feet (1000 meters)in search of squid to eat. These giant mammals must hold their breath for up to 50 minutes on such dives.
Fin whale
The fin whale is the world's second largest animal after the blue whales. Growing up to 27 meters long and weighting as much as 120 tones. The upper half of the body is dark gray or brownish. While the belly is white. They can dive to depth of 230 meters and make low frequency noise(infra sound). which can be loud as 188 decibels. These sounds cannot be heard humans but can be detected by other fin whales. Up to 850KM away.
Dolphin : Spinner dolphin, Bottle-nose dolphin
Spinner dolphin
This is a small and slender dolphin and the size of them will very based on where they reside. The common coloration of them is dark gray on the back. And lighter gray on the sides. They are white or light gray on the bally. They may have a very dark gray stripe that runs from the eye to the flipper. The dorsal fin that is triangular shaped.
Bottle-nose dolphin
Bottle nose dolphins are actually small whales and belonging to the group known as tooth head whales. they are air breathing mammals even though. They have adapted to the marine environment. They still must come to the surface to breathe through the blowhole on top of their heads. Bottle-nose Dolphins are common in temperate and tropical seas all over the world. There is an inshore species that is often seen along the coast. Bottle-nose dolphins eat around 15 kilograms of food a day consisting of wide variety of fish. Squid and octopuses. They will reach 2-4 meters and weigh between 150-650 kilograms. Bottle-nose dolphin can live to over 30 years of age.
