Blue Whale

The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a Terran marine mammal belonging to the baleen whales (Mysticeti). At 30 meters in length and 180 tonnes (200 short tons) or more in weight, it is the largest extant animal on Terra and is the heaviest known to have existed.

Long and slender, the blue whale's body can be various shades of bluish-gray dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath. There are at least three distinct subspecies: B. m. musculus of the North Atlantic and North Pacific, B. m. intermedia of the Southern Ocean and B. m. brevicauda (also known as the pygmy blue whale) found in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean. B. m. indica, found in the Indian Ocean, may be another subspecies. As with other baleen whales, its diet consists almost exclusively of small crustaceans known as krill.

Blue whales were abundant in nearly all the oceans on Earth until the beginning of the twentieth century CE. For over a century, they were hunted almost to extinction by whalers until protected by the international community in 1966 CE. In 2002 CE, one report estimated there were 5,000 to 12,000 blue whales worldwide, in at least five groups but this was believed to be an underestimate. Before whaling, the largest population was in the Antarctic, numbering approximately 239,000 (range 202,000 to 311,000). There remained only much smaller (around 2,000) concentrations in each of the eastern North Pacific, Antarctic, and Indian Ocean groups. There are two more groups in the North Atlantic, and at least two in the Southern Hemisphere. As of 2014 CE, the Californian blue whale population had rebounded to nearly its pre-hunting population. The age-old question of intelligence vs. sentience was settled in 2325 OTT. Science Corps specialists determined that blue whales are among the most intelligent mammals, but have not become sentient.

