Whale Coloring Pages

Fun Facts about Whales

• The blue whale is the largest animal ever to have lived on Earth; it is larger than any of the giant dinosaurs were. The biggest recorded blue whale was a female in the Antarctic Ocean that was 30.5 m long (more than 3.5 times the length of a double-decker bus and as long as a Boeing 737plane) with an estimated weight of 144 tonnes (almost the same as 2,000 men!). The tongue alone of a blue whale can weigh as much as an elephant and an entire football team could stand on it!
• From one point of view, we can never know if the beluga whale really loves music. However, they do respond and express great curiosity and even sometimes join in synchronized dance. In 2013, a pair of artists rigged a boat with an underwater sound system and sailed out to sea in order to play the belugas an underwater symphony. The whales were extremely interested and even joined in, showing an appreciation for music and art above and beyond most known creatures on Earth.
• Many whales are toothless. They use a plate of comb-like fibre called baleen to filter small crustaceans and other creatures from the water.
• Though we can’t hear them, blue whales are one of the loudest animals on the planet, communicating with each other using a series of low frequency pulses, groans, and moans. It is thought that in good conditions blue whales can hear each other across distances of up to 1,600km.
• Blue whales are pregnant for 10-12 months. The newborn calf is about 7.5 m long and weighs about 5.5 – 7.3 tonnes –nearly as much as 100 men! A baby blue whale drinks about 225 litres (about enough to fill a bath) of its mother’s fat-laden milk (it is 40-50% fat and about the consistency of cottage cheese) a day, gaining 3.7 kilograms an hour,until at age 8 months they are 15 m long and 22.5 tonnes! The mother and calf may stay together for a year or longer, until the calf is about 13 m long.
• Female humpback whales not only make friends with one another but reunite each year. They remember their pals and even find them across the ocean and among other whales.
• The arched lower lip of a whale can often make it look like it is smiling! However, this isn’t a “real” smile as the blubber in the head of the whale prevents the muscles of the face from reaching the surface.
• Intensive hunting in the 1900s by whalers seeking whale oil drove them to the brink of extinction. Hundreds of thousands of whales were killed. The 1966 International Whaling Commission finally gave them protection, although they have only recovered slightly since then. Blue whales are currently classified as endangered on the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List. It is estimated that only 10,000-25,000 blue whales now swim the world’s oceans.