How Big Is a Blue Whale?

• They can be 90 to 100 feet long.

• An adult weighs around 290,000 to 330,000 pounds.

• Babies are approximately 23 feet long and about 5,000 pounds — the most giant babies on Earth.

• Females are larger than males.

• A blue whale’s tongue weighs more than an elephant.

• Their heart is the size of an average four-person car.

The heaviest blue whale ever recorded was a female hunted to death in 1947 at a whopping 418,878 pounds. The longest was 10’ 17” long over a century ago in 1909.

Blue whales are members of the baleen or “great” whale family and are not only the largest of the rorquals, but they are the largest animals ever to live on our planet. They feed almost exclusively on krill, straining huge volumes of ocean water through their baleen plates (which hang from the roof of the mouth and work like a sieve). Some of the biggest individuals may eat up to 6 tons of krill a day.

Blue whales are found in all oceans except the Arctic Ocean. There are five currently recognized subspecies of blue whales.

The number of blue whales today is only a small fraction of what it was before modern commercial whaling significantly reduced their numbers during the early 1900s, but populations are increasing globally. The primary threats blue whales currently face are vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear.