List of Blue Whale Behavioral Patterns
Blue whales are the largest animals ever known to have lived on Earth, and their behavior is just as remarkable as their size. From how they feed and dive to how they find a mate and raise their young, understanding blue whale behavior adds a new layer of appreciation to every sighting. Below, we break down how blue whales feed, dive, socialize, communicate, and reproduce.
Size, Speed & Range
Blue whales are the largest animal inhabiting the earth, spanning as long as three school buses. They live in all of the world’s oceans except the Arctic, cruising their way through the water at an average speed of five miles per hour. They are able to accelerate to more than 20 miles per hour for short durations of time. Blue whales usually swim individually or in small groups, with pairs commonly spotted as well. An estimated 2,000 or more blue whales feed off the California coast each year and migrate south toward Mexico and Costa Rica.Feeding Behavior
Blue whales are lunge feeders, and their feeding behavior is one of the most dramatic in the animal kingdom. They typically dive to depths of around 200 meters or more to reach dense patches of krill, then lunge upward with their mouths wide open, engulfing enormous volumes of water and prey at once. Once their mouths close, they push the water back out through their baleen plates using their tongues, trapping the krill inside to swallow. Blue whales primarily eat krill and other shrimp-like euphausiids up to three inches long, and during feeding season they must consume two to four tons of krill a day to build the fat reserves that carry them through their winter migration, when they eat little to nothing.
Diving Behavior
Blue whales typically make foraging dives lasting 10 to 20 minutes, though dives of 30 minutes or longer have been recorded. During the day, they tend to dive deeper to follow krill that has sunk lower in the water column; at night, as krill rises closer to the surface, their dives become shallower. This day-night diving pattern is a direct response to the movement of their prey.Social Behavior
Blue whales are largely solitary animals, most often seen swimming alone or in pairs, though small groups aren’t uncommon. Unlike orcas or humpback whales, they don’t form long-term social bonds or complex social structures. That said, they aren’t entirely asocial — when krill is especially abundant, multiple blue whales may gather temporarily in the same feeding area, spacing themselves out to avoid competing directly with one another.How Do Blue Whales Attract a Mate?
Most often, blue whales attract a mate through song. These mammals are among the loudest species on the planet, releasing a series of pulses, groans, or moans to communicate with other whales who can hear them from up to 1,000 miles away in good conditions. Scientists believe blue whales use these vocalizations not just to communicate, but also to navigate their way around the deep, dark sea. Male blue whales sing a deep song to attract nearby females, and may also inflate the skin around their throats to look bigger, release streams of bubbles from their blowholes, or slap the surface of the ocean with their strong fins. Blue whale populations have been slowly recovering since the end of commercial whaling, which means more competition for mates in some areas today. The deeper a male’s song, the more attractive he tends to be to a female — a deeper song is generally associated with a larger, stronger whale.