Blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) are marine mammals belonging to a suborder of baleen whales. Their length reaches more than 33 meters and their mass is recorded at 181 tons or more. This animal is believed to be the largest animal ever known.
This long and slender whale has a bluish gray back and dorsal front. [13] There are at least three blue whale subspecies: B. m. musculus in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, B. m. intermedia in the Southern Ocean, and B. m. brevicauda (also called pygmy blue whale) in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean. B. m. indica that lives in the Indian Ocean may be another subspecies. Like other baleen whales, the staple food of blue whales is a small crustacean called krill.
Blue whales were abundant in almost all oceans until the early 20th century. For more than a century, the whale was hunted to near extinction before finally being protected by the international community in 1966. According to a report in 2002, there were around 5,000 to 12,000 blue whales worldwide who were divided into at least five groups. Recent research on the subspecies of pygmy blue whales shows that this estimate may be too low. Before the on-going whaling, the largest population is in Antarctica, which amounts to approximately 239,000 (between 202,000 and 311,000). and the Indian Ocean is much lower than the previous number (approximately 2,000). There are also two other groups in the North Atlantic Ocean, and at least two more groups in the Southern Hemisphere.
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