There are regular reports of much faster migration speeds and rapid sustained bursts of speeds; notably their swimming speeds were too fast for whalers until the modern era of whaling introduced steam-powered boats and explosive-tipped harpoons. The maximum speed of a blue whale while being chased or harassed has been reported at 20 to 48 km/h (10–25 knots).
Swim speed
Blue whale
Blue whale | Swim speed
Blue whales leisurely traveling rates is 4.6 mph. The maximum speed of a blue whale while being chased or harassed has been reported at 20 to 48 km/h Data suggest leisurely traveling rates of 4 knots, or 4.6 mph (7.41 km/h), with a minimum average speed of 1.55 ± 1.68 mph (2.49 ± 2.7 km/h). Their leisurely traveling rates are 4 knots or 4.6 mph. The maximum speed of a blue whale while being chased or harassed has been reported at 20 to 48 km/h (10–25 knots).
who makes up most of the population of antarctica
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5,000 in the summer and much lesser in winter
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where did it get the name from?
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It is the romanised version of the Greek compound word "antarktiké" meaning "opposite to the Arctic", "opposite to the north"
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what kinds of animals can be seen there?
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Some species of marine animals include penguins, blue whales, orcas, colossal squids and fur seals
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what sort of weather conditions it has?
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It is the coldest of Earth's continents.
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how big is the second marine animal mentioned?
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A maximum confirmed length of 29.9 meters (98 feet) and weight of 173 tonnes (190 tons), it is the largest animal known to have ever existed.
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how fast is it while swimming?
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There are regular reports of much faster migration speeds and rapid sustained bursts of speeds; notably their swimming speeds were too fast for whalers until the modern era of whaling introduced steam-powered boats and explosive-tipped harpoons. The maximum speed of a blue whale while being chased or harassed has been reported at 20 to 48 km/h (10–25 knots).
Blue whale | Swim speed
Data from individual satellite tagged Eastern North Pacific blue whales suggest leisurely traveling rates of 4 knots, or 4.6 mph (7.41 km/h), with a minimum average speed of 1.55 ± 1.68 mph (2.49 ± 2.7 km/h). With additional satellite tagged animals (n=10), reported mean swim speeds of 108 ± 33.3 km/day, ranging 58–172 km/day. That would translate to 2.79 ± 0.86 mph (4.5 ± 1.39 km/h), ranging from 1.5–4.45 mph (2.42–7.17 km/h). Lagerquist et al. reported mean swim speed using only high-quality satellite locations as 2.55 ± 1.43 mph (4.1 ± 2.3 km/h) from 11 tagged blue whales. A pygmy blue whale tagged off Perth Canyon, Western Australia traveled at mean speeds of 2.8 ± 2.2 km/h.
Blue whale | Swim speed
When traveling at higher speeds they have been observed to either (1) swim just below the surface, surfacing briefly to breath and then submerge or (2) swim rapidly at the surface, performing low-angle leaps covering much surface distance. Breaching, belly-flopping, side-slapping, and lob-tailing (slapping the flukes on the water surface) have been witnessed. Some groups will avoid boats, whereas others approach and possibly bow-ride. Few direct speed measurements at sea exist but swimming speed has been reported to be .
Southern right whale dolphin | Social
The blue whale is the largest known animal. In the International Whaling Commission (IWC) whaling database, 88 individuals longer than 30 m were reported, including one up to 33.0 m, but problems with how the measurements were made suggest that measurements longer than 30.5 m are somewhat suspect. The Discovery Committee reported lengths up to 102 ft (31.1 m); however, the longest scientifically measured (e.g., from rostrum tip to tail notch) individual blue whale was 98 ft (29.9 m). Female blue whales are larger than males. Hydrodynamic models suggest that a blue whale could not exceed 108 ft (33 m) due to metabolic and energy constraints.
Blue whale | Size
However, in the period from 31 Ma ago (in the Oligocene) to the present, cetaceans underwent a significantly more rapid sustained increase in body mass (a rate of increase in "body mass" of a factor of 3.2 per million years) than achieved by any group of terrestrial mammals. This trend led to the largest animal of all time, the modern blue whale. Several reasons for the more rapid evolution of large body size in cetaceans are possible. Fewer biomechanical constraints on increases in body size may be associated with suspension in water as opposed to standing against the force of gravity, and with swimming movements as opposed to terrestrial locomotion.
Megafauna | In marine mammals
Belugas are slower swimmers than the other toothed whales, such as the killer whale and the common bottlenose dolphin, because they are less hydrodynamic and have limited movement of their tail-fins, which produce the greatest thrust. They frequently swim at speeds between , although they are able to maintain a speed of 22 km/h for up to 15 min. Unlike most cetaceans, they are capable of swimming backwards. Belugas swim on the surface between 5% and 10% of the time, while for the rest of the time they swim at a depth sufficient enough to cover their bodies. They do not jump out of the water like dolphins or killer whales.
Beluga whale | Swimming and diving
When swimming, baleen whales rely on their flippers for locomotion in a wing-like manner similar to penguins and sea turtles. Flipper movement is continuous. While doing this, baleen whales use their tail fluke to propel themselves forward through vertical motion while using their flippers for steering, much like an otter. Some species leap out of the water, which may allow them to travel faster. Because of their great size, right whales are not flexible or agile like dolphins, and none can move their neck because of the fused cervical vertebrae; this sacrifices speed for stability in the water. The hind legs are enclosed inside the body, and are thought to be vestigial organs.
Baleen whale | Motion
Northern right whale dolphins are fast swimmers. Their average swimming speed is around 26 km/h (16 mph) but they can reach speeds of up to 30-40 km/h (19-25 mph). When travelling fast, a group looks as though they are bouncing along on the water, as they make low, graceful leaps together, sometimes travelling as far as 7 m in one leap. They can dive up to 200 m (660 ft) deep in search of squid and fish, especially lanternfish. Additionally, "L. borealis" also feeds on other prey items, such as Pacific hake, saury and mesopelagic fish. Although northern right whale dolphins rarely approach boats, they sometimes engage in bow-riding behaviour.
Northern right whale dolphin | Behavior
Fully aquatic mammals, the cetaceans and sirenians, have lost their legs and have a tail fin to propel themselves through the water. Flipper movement is continuous. Whales swim by moving their tail fin and lower body up and down, propelling themselves through vertical movement, while their flippers are mainly used for steering. Their skeletal anatomy allows them to be fast swimmers. Most species have a dorsal fin to prevent themselves from turning upside-down in the water. The flukes of sirenians are raised up and down in long strokes to move the animal forward, and can be twisted to turn. The forelimbs are paddle-like flippers which aid in turning and slowing.
Mammal | Aquatic
Baleen whales range in size from the and pygmy right whale to the and blue whale, the largest known animal to have ever existed. They are sexually dimorphic. Baleen whales can have streamlined or large bodies, depending on the feeding behavior, and two limbs that are modified into flippers. The fin whale is the fastest baleen whale, recorded swimming at . Baleen whales use their baleen plates to filter out food from the water by either lunge-feeding or skim-feeding. Baleen whales have fused neck vertebrae, and are unable to turn their head at all. Baleen whales have two blowholes. Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths.
Baleen whale | Introduction
Bowhead whales are not social animals, typically travelling alone or in small pods of up to six. They are able to dive and remain submerged under water for up to an hour. The time spent under water in a single dive is usually limited to 9–18 minutes. Bowheads are not thought to be deep divers, but they can reach a depth down to . These whales are slow swimmers, normally travelling around []. When fleeing from danger, they can travel at a speed of []. During periods of feeding, the average swim speed is increased to [].
Bowhead whale | Swimming
The largest of these, the blue whale ("Balaenoptera musculus"), grows to long weighing 84 tonnes. Many of these species are migratory, and travel to tropical waters during the Antarctic winter.
Southern Ocean | Mammals
The blue whale ("Balaenoptera musculus") is a marine mammal belonging to the baleen whale suborder Mysticeti. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of 29.9 meters (98 feet) and weight of 173 tonnes (190 tons), it is the largest animal known to have ever existed. The blue whale’s long and slender body can be various shades of grayish-blue dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath. There are currently five subspecies of blue whale, recognized by the Society for Marine Mammalogy’s Committee on Taxonomy: "B. m. musculus" in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, "B. m. intermedia" in the Southern Ocean, "B. m. brevicauda" (the pygmy blue whale) in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, "B.
Blue whale | Introduction
The whale breathes three to five times at short intervals before 'deep-diving' for two to 20 minutes. Deep dives are preceded by a pronounced arching of the back. The maximum swimming speed of minkes has been estimated at .
Minke whale | Behavior
By comparison, the blue whale reaches in length.
Maraapunisaurus | Size
As the largest animal alive, the blue whale has the largest instance of several body parts.
Largest body part | Blue whale
When swimming, whales rely on their tail fin propel them through the water. Flipper movement is continuous. Whales swim by moving their tail fin and lower body up and down, propelling themselves through vertical movement, while their flippers are mainly used for steering. Some species log out of the water, which may allow them to travel faster. Their skeletal anatomy allows them to be fast swimmers. Most species have a dorsal fin. Whales are adapted for diving to great depths. In addition to their streamlined bodies, they can slow their heart rate to conserve oxygen; blood is rerouted from tissue tolerant of water pressure to the heart and brain among other organs; haemoglobin and myoglobin store oxygen in body tissue; and they have twice the concentration of myoglobin than haemoglobin.
Whale | Locomotion
Specimen measurements indicate that a blue whale measuring in length had a vestigial mammary slit of width and length, with a penis measurement of . In another specimen in which the length of the whale was and weighed 50.9 metric tons, the brain weighed only .
Blue whale penis | Scientific studies
Finer control, such as for slow movements, is often achieved with thrust from pectoral fins (or front limbs in marine mammals). Some fish, e.g. the spotted ratfish ("Hydrolagus colliei") and batiform fish (electric rays, sawfishes, guitarfishes, skates and stingrays) use their pectoral fins as the primary means of locomotion, sometimes termed labriform swimming. Marine mammals oscillate their body in an up-and-down (dorso-ventral) direction. Other animals, e.g. penguins, diving ducks, move underwater in a manner which has been termed "aquatic flying". Some fish propel themselves without a wave motion of the body, as in the slow-moving seahorses and "Gymnotus". Other animals, such as cephalopods, use jet propulsion to travel fast, taking in water then squirting it back out in an explosive burst.
Animal locomotion | Swimming
During traveling, when the whale was slower moving (generally in a straight line), it would exhale the greatest number of times (6.44 on average) and dive for a longer period of time (3.67 minutes on average) than when it was feeding, which was characterized by constant change in direction and vigorous swimming – this normally involved one or two respirations interspersed with three to seven (2.27 on average) followed by a relatively short dive (1.36 minutes on average). When a whale was searching, on the other hand (which involved the whale moving at a faster speed than traveling in a sort of zigzag motion), it would exhale 3.22 times on average and dive the longest of the three modes (3.76 minutes on average).
Common minke whale | Surfacing sequence
A first study of this problem was published by Judy Massare in 1988. Even when assuming a low hydrodynamic efficiency of 0.65, Massare's model seemed to indicate that plesiosaurs, if warm-blooded, would have cruised at a speed of four metres per second, or about fourteen kilometres per hour, considerably exceeding the known speeds of extant dolphins and whales. However, in 2002 Ryosuke Motani showed that the formulae that Massare had used, had been flawed. A recalculation, using corrected formulae, resulted in a speed of half a metre per second (1.8 km/h) for a cold-blooded plesiosaur and one and a half metres per second (5.4 km/h) for an endothermic plesiosaur.
Plesiosauria | Speed
Antarctic males averaged 112 tons (224,000 lb) and females 130 tons (260,000 lb). Pygmy blue whale males average 83.5 (167,000 lb) and 99 tons (198,000 lb). The largest heart weight measured from a stranded North Atlantic blue whale was 0.1985 tons (397 lb), the largest known in any animal.
Blue whale | Size
Porpoising (seen in cetaceans, penguins, and pinnipeds) may save energy if they are moving fast. Since drag increases with speed, the work required to swim unit distance is greater at higher speeds, but the work needed to jump unit distance is independent of speed. Seals propel themselves through the water with their caudal tail, while sea lions create thrust solely with their pectoral flippers.
Aquatic locomotion | Hydrofoils
The Eastern North Pacific population of blue whales have been well studied. The greatest dive depth reported from tagged blue whales was 315 meters. Their theoretical aerobic dive limit was estimated at 31.2 min, however, the longest dive duration measured was 15.2 minutes. The deepest confirmed dive from a pygmy blue whale was 1,660 ft (506 m).
Blue whale | Diet and feeding
A 2017 study by PhD student Humberto Ferron analyzed the relationships between the morphological variables including the skeleton and tail fin of "C. mantelli" and modeled an average cruising speed of and a burst swimming speed of around , making "Cretoxyrhina" possibly one of the fastest sharks known. For comparison, the modern great white shark has been modeled to reaches speeds of up to and the shortfin mako, the fastest extant shark, has been modeled at a speed of .
Cretoxyrhina | Hydrodynamics and locomotion
These animals usually only dive to depths to , although they are capable of diving to greater depths. Individual captive animals have been recorded at depths between 400 and 647 m below sea level, while animals in the wild have been recorded as diving to a depth of more than 700 m, with the greatest recorded depth being over 900 m. A dive normally lasts 3 to 5 minutes, but can last up to over 20 minutes. In the shallower water of the estuaries, a diving session may last around two minutes; the sequence consists of five or six rapid, shallow dives followed by a deeper dive lasting up to one minute.
Beluga whale | Swimming and diving
Because of their great size, right whales are not flexible or agile like dolphins, and none can move their neck because of the fused cervical vertebrae; this sacrifices speed for stability in the water. The vestigial hind legs are enclosed inside the body. Rorquals need to build speed to feed, and have several adaptions for reducing drag, including a streamlined body; a small dorsal fin, relative to its size; and lack of external ears or hair. The fin whale, the fastest among baleen whales, can travel at . While feeding, the rorqual mouth expands by strtching the throat pleats to a volume that can be bigger than the resting whale itself; The mandible is connected to the skull by dense fibers and cartilage (fibrocartilage), allowing the jaw to swing open at almost a 90° angle.
Physiology of underwater diving | Baleen whales
Whales have two flippers on the front, and a tail fin. These flippers contain four digits. Although whales do not possess fully developed hind limbs, some, such as the sperm whale and bowhead whale, possess discrete rudimentary appendages, which may contain feet and digits. Whales are fast swimmers in comparison to seals, which typically cruise at 5–15 kn, or ; the fin whale, in comparison, can travel at speeds up to and the sperm whale can reach speeds of . The fusing of the neck vertebrae, while increasing stability when swimming at high speeds, decreases flexibility; whales are unable to turn their heads.
Whale | Locomotion
A small "Eurypterus" could achieve two and a half body lengths per second immediately. Larger adults, meanwhile, probably swam with the subaqueous flight type. The maximum velocity of adults when cruising would have been per second, slightly faster than turtles and sea otters.
Eurypterus | Paleobiology and paleoecology
The lumbar vertebrae were elongated and may have supported large multifidus and longissimus muscles in the back, likely larger than the modern sperm whale, and so it probably swam faster than the modern sperm whale; the modern sperm whale typically travels horizontally at , comparable to other large open-ocean animals. The type specimen had eight caudal vertebrae in the tail. The animal probably had 12 ribs. The length of the ribs increased from the first to the fifth, then decreased from the fifth to the twelfth; and the width of the ribs decreased from the first to the twelfth, similar to other cetaceans.
Zygophyseter | Vertebrae
The blue whale is the largest species of whale, and the largest species of animal known to have existed. Blue whale may also refer to:
Blue whale (disambiguation) | Introduction
Swimming mammals, such as whales, dolphins, and seals, use their flippers to move forward through the water column. During swimming sea lions have a thrust phase, which lasts about 60% of the full cycle, and the recovery phase lasts the remaining 40%. A full cycle duration lasts about 0.5 to 1.0 seconds. Changing direction is a very rapid maneuver that is initiated by head movement towards the back of the animal that is followed by a spiral turn with the body. Due to their pectoral flippers being so closely located to their center of gravity, sea lions are capable of displaying astounding maneuverability in the pitch, roll, and yaw direction and are therefore not constrained, turning stochastically as they please.
Fin and flipper locomotion | Aquatic locomotion of marine mammals
These are narrow and approximately long, and are covered in very thin hairs. The plates enable the whale to filter feed. The penis on a right whale can be up to – the testes, at up to in length, in diameter, and weighing up to 525 kg (1157 lbs), are also by far the largest of any animal on Earth. The blue whale may be the largest animal on the planet, yet the testicles of the right whale are ten times the size of those of the blue whale. They also exceed predictions in terms of relative size, as well – they are six times larger than would be expected on the basis of body mass.
Right whale | Anatomy
Researchers tracked 52 sows in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska with GPS system collars; no boars were involved in the study due to males' necks being too thick for the GPS-equipped collars. Fifty long-distance swims were recorded; the longest at , with an average of . The length of these swims ranged from most of a day to ten days. Ten of the sows had a cub swim with them and after a year, six cubs survived. The study did not determine if the others lost their cubs before, during, or some time after their long swims. Researchers do not know whether or not this is a new behaviour; before polar ice shrinkage, they opined that there was probably neither the need nor opportunity to swim such long distances.
Polar bear | Long-distance swimming and diving
The tip of the penis, which tapers toward the end, is called the "pars intrapraeputialis" or "terminal cone". The blue whale has the largest penis of any organism on the planet, typically measuring . Accurate measurements of the blue whale are difficult to take because the whale's erect length can only be observed during mating. The penis on a right whale can be up to – the testes, at up to in length, in diameter, and weighing up to , are also the largest of any animal on Earth.
Baleen whale | Reproduction and development
Both species are highly gregarious. They move in pods of several hundred individuals and sometimes congregate in groups of 3000. The groups may also contain dusky dolphins and pilot whales (in the south) and Pacific white-sided dolphins (in the north). These dolphins are some of the fastest swimmers (in excess of 40 km/h). They can by turns become very boisterous and breach and tail-slap or become very quiet and almost undetectable at sea. At high speed they can leap up to 7 metres across the ocean's surface in a graceful bouncing motion. The species will generally avoid boats, but bow-riding has been recorded on occasion.
Right whale dolphin | Behaviour
The fin whale ("Balaenoptera physalus"), also known as finback whale or common rorqual and formerly known as herring whale or razorback whale, is a cetacean belonging to the parvorder of baleen whales. It is the second-largest species on Earth after the blue whale. The largest reportedly grow to long with a maximum confirmed length of , a maximum recorded weight of nearly , and a maximum estimated weight of around . American naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews called the fin whale "the greyhound of the sea ... for its beautiful, slender body is built like a racing yacht and the animal can surpass the speed of the fastest ocean steamship." The fin whale's body is long and slender, coloured brownish-grey with a paler underside.
Fin whale | Introduction
When swimming, toothed whales rely on their tail fins to propel them through the water. Flipper movement is continuous. They swim by moving their tail fin and lower body up and down, propelling themselves through vertical movement, while their flippers are mainly used for steering. Some species log out of the water, which may allow then to travel faster. Their skeletal anatomy allows them to be fast swimmers. Most species have a dorsal fin. Most toothed whales are adapted for diving to great depths, porpoises are one exception. In addition to their streamlined bodies, they can slow their heart rate to conserve oxygen; blood is rerouted from tissue tolerant of water pressure to the heart and brain among other organs; haemoglobin and myoglobin store oxygen in body tissue; and they have twice the concentration of myoglobin than haemoglobin.
Toothed whale | Locomotion
The blue whale has the largest penis in the animal kingdom. It is commonly cited as having an average penis length of to and a diameter of to .
Blue whale penis | Introduction
In comparison to modern toothed whales, the hands and fingers were much longer. In the spinal column, the vertebrae (backbones) at the base of the tail formed a more rigid structure than in earlier cetaceans, while the lumbar region–consisting of vertebrae between the rib cage and pelvis—was very flexible. The height and width of the vertebral centra (bodies of the vertebrae) increase in height from the back of the chest to the basal part of the tail, with the second caudal (tail) vertebra being the tallest and broadest, indicating this region of the body experienced the most undulation when the animal was swimming.
Ankylorhiza | Description
Through observations made by an ROV, it was found that the "C. coloratus" swim vertically with their head oriented upwards. While in rapid ascent, the specimen will use their dorsal, caudal, and anal fins to propel themselves upwards and tuck the rest of their fins in close to their body. The observation collected found that the specimen had average velocities of 0.036 m/s and 0.021 m/s while ascending. As for maneuvering across the ocean floor, observations found that the specimen use their pectoral and pelvic fins. In order to perform this "walking," they use their dorsal fin from one side to side, then thrust their caudal fin repeatedly, and then maneuver using their pectoral and pelvic fins.
Sea toad | "C. coloratus"
For example, "Crocodylus porosus", or estuarine crocodiles, were found to increase swimming speed from 15 °C to 23 °C and then to have peak swimming speed from 23 °C to 33 °C. However, performance began to decline as temperature rose beyond that point, showing a limit to the range of temperatures at which this species could ideally perform.
Aquatic locomotion | Temperature
The legs touch the wall and the hands are at the front. The swimmer sinks under water and lies on the breast, or nearly so. Then the swimmer pushes off the wall, keeping a streamline position with the hands to the front. Similar to the start, the swimmer is allowed to swim 15 m underwater before the head must break the surface. Most swimmers dolphin kick after an initial gliding phase. The finish requires the swimmer to touch the wall with both hands at the same time, in the same horizontal plane.
Butterfly stroke | Turn and finish
Another fish traveled at a speed of about 2.2 kilometers per day.
Scorpaena guttata | Biology
In Japan, these only occur in winter, suggesting it is tied to seasonal food shortages. A pod near Chile had a cruising speed, and false killer whales in captivity were recorded to have a maximum speed of , similar to the bottlenose dolphin. Diving behavior is not well recorded, but one individual near Japan dove for 12 minutes to a depth of . In Japan, one individual had a documented dive of , and one in Hawaii , comparable to pilot whales and other similarly-sized dolphins. Its maximum dive time is likely 18.5 minutes.
False killer whale | Behavior
Sperm whales spout (breathe) 3–5 times per minute at rest, increasing to 6–7 times per minute after a dive. The blow is a noisy, single stream that rises up to or more above the surface and points forward and left at a 45° angle. On average, females and juveniles blow every 12.5 seconds before dives, while large males blow every 17.5 seconds before dives. A sperm whale killed south of Durban, South Africa, after a 1-hour, 50-minute dive was found with two dogfish (Scymnodon sp.), usually found at the sea floor, in its belly. In 1959, the heart of a 22 metric-ton (24 short-ton) male taken by whalers was measured to be , about 0.5% of its total mass.
Physiology of underwater diving | Sperm whale
A whale at the maximum known size of 79 feet would weigh in the range of 129.5 tonnes (143 tons). The shorter tail gives the pygmy blue whale more of a tadpole-like shape, and reflects in differences in diving behavior: whereas in the "true" blues, there is a delay between the submergence of the dorsal fin and the caudal peduncle; in pygmy blue whales, the dorsal and peduncle submerge simultaneously. Pygmy blue whales also tend to be darker than the other subspecies of blue whales, and the shape of their blowhole is different.
Pygmy blue whale | Physical characteristics
To facilitate the movement of marine mammals in water, the hind legs were either lost altogether, as in the whales and manatees, or united in a single tail fin as in the pinnipeds (seals). In the whale, the cervical vertebrae are typically fused, an adaptation trading flexibility for stability during swimming.
Skeleton | Marine mammals
The average animal size was about 4 cm Metachronal rowing seems to be efficient propulsive aid for Antarctic krill to travel long distances. Study done by Alben et al. show that metachronal rhythm produce larger average propulsion velocity compared to more synchronous stroke rhythms.
Metachronal swimming | Antarctic krill
Cetaceans have two flippers on the front, and a tail fin. These flippers contain four digits. Although toothed whales do not possess fully developed hind limbs, some, such as the sperm whale, possess discrete rudimentary appendages, which may contain feet and digits. Toothed whales are fast swimmers in comparison to seals, which typically cruise at 5–15 knots, or ; the sperm whale, in comparison, can travel at speeds of up to . The fusing of the neck vertebrae, while increasing stability when swimming at high speeds, decreases flexibility, rendering them incapable of turning their heads; river dolphins, however, have unfused neck vertebrae and can turn their heads.
Toothed whale | Locomotion
All of the baleen whale sound files on this page (with the exception of the humpback vocalizations) are reproduced at 10x speed to bring the sound into the human auditory band.
List of whale vocalizations | Blue whale ("Balaenoptera musculus")
Baleen whales, (systematic name Mysticeti, form a parvorder of the Cetacea. They are a widely distributed group of carnivorous marine mammals of the families Balaenidae (right and bowhead whales), Balaenopteridae (rorquals), Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale), and Eschrichtiidae (the gray whale). There are currently 15 species of baleen whales. Baleen whales range in size from the and pygmy right whale to the and blue whale. When swimming, baleen whales use their forelimb flippers in a wing-like manner similar to penguins and sea turtles for locomotion and steering, while using their tail fluke to propel themselves forward through repeated vertical motion.
Physiology of underwater diving | Baleen whales
The whales then suddenly swim upward through the "net", mouths agape, swallowing thousands of fish in one gulp. The water is then squeezed out through baleen plates in the mouth to filter out the prey. So-called lobtail feeding was observed in the North Atlantic. This technique involves the whale slapping the surface of the ocean with its tail between one and four times before creating the bubble net. Using network-based diffusion analysis, the study authors argued that these whales learned the behavior from other whales in the group over a period of 27 years in response to a change in the primary form of prey.
Humpback whale | Bubble net
"C. trematoides" grows to 2.5 cm in length. It swims at approximately 12 cm/s, by passing several undulatory waves down its body each second. It is flattened and transparent; its internal organs are visible.
Cephalopyge trematoides | Description
Bruyns reported that they maintained a cruising speed of 4 knots, and traveled in groups of 4 to 8, but usually 6.
Cryptid whale | Alula whale
Indeed, it makes cephalopods the fastest marine invertebrates, and they can out-accelerate most fish. The jet is supplemented with fin motion; in the squid, the fins flap each time that a jet is released, amplifying the thrust; they are then extended between jets (presumably to avoid sinking). Oxygenated water is taken into the mantle cavity to the gills and through muscular contraction of this cavity, the spent water is expelled through the hyponome, created by a fold in the mantle. The size difference between the posterior and anterior ends of this organ control the speed of the jet the organism can produce.
Cephalopod | Locomotion and buoyancy
Swimming the breaststroke leg in heat two, Labowitch recorded a time of 1:03.88, but the New Zealand team missed the final by 5 seconds, finishing in seventh place and twelfth overall with a final time of 3:42.74.
Ben Labowitch | Introduction
Some species log out of the water, which may allow them to travel faster. Their skeletal anatomy allows them to be fast swimmers. All species have a dorsal fin to prevent themselves from involuntarily spinning in the water.
Oceanic dolphin | Locomotion
Porpoising is high-speed swimming close to water surface with many leaving and re-entering the water nose-first. Dolphin, Penguin, and Seal porpoise in the wild. Dolphin saves energy at high speed porpoising. Penguin porpoises in group for long distance traveling. Seal porpoises as group play
Aerial locomotion in marine animals | Porpoising
Some Arthropod groups can swim - including many crustaceans. Most crustaceans, such as shrimp, will usually swim by paddling with special swimming legs (pleopods). Swimming crabs swim with modified walking legs (pereiopods). Daphnia, a crustacean, swims by beating its antennae instead. There are also a number of forms of swimming molluscs. Many free-swimming sea slugs, such as sea angels, flap fin-like structures. Some shelled molluscs, such as scallops can briefly swim by clapping their two shells open and closed. The molluscs most evolved for swimming are the cephalopods.
Aquatic locomotion | Invertebrates
The rostrum is flat and V-shaped with the head occupying about a quarter of the body length. The pectoral fins are short but slender, being from about 13 to 15 per cent of the body length. The dorsal fin ranges between 7.5 to 20 cm (3 to 8 inches) in height and 18 to 60 cm (7 to 23.6 inches) in length for specimens 3.9 to 7.15 m (12.8 to 23.4 ft) in length, and is placed about 57 per cent of the body length back from the tip of the rostrum. It is 61.5 per cent of the body length from the tip of the lower jaw to the umbilicus, whereas it is about 63 per cent from the tip of the lower jaw to the end of the ventral grooves.
Omura's whale | Morphometrics
According to observations made since the subspecies was first described in 1966, the pygmy blue whale differs from the "true" blue whales in a number of physical characteristics. It has: Pygmy blue whales reach sexual maturity at 10 years of age and a length of 19.2 meters (63 feet), weighing on average 52.5 tonnes (58 tons). As adults, males average 21.1 meters (69 feet) and females 21.9 meters (72 feet), with most probably between 20.7 and 22.5 meters (68 and 74 feet). The calculated average weight is 75.5 tonnes (83.5 tons) for males and 90 tonnes (99 tons) for females.
Pygmy blue whale | Physical characteristics
The sei whale is the third-largest balaenopterid, after the blue whale (up to 180 tonnes, 200 tons) and the fin whale (up to 70 tonnes, 77 tons) but close to the humpback whale. In the North Pacific, adult males average and adult females , weighing 15 and 18.5 tonnes (16.5 and 20.5 tons), while in the North Atlantic adult males average and adult females , weighing 15.5 and 17 tonnes (17 and 18.5 tons) In the Southern Hemisphere, they average 14.5 (47.5 ft) and , respectively, weighing 17 and 18.5 tonnes (18.5 and 20.5 tons). ( In the Northern Hemisphere, males reach up to and females up to , while in the Southern Hemisphere males reach and females —the authenticity of an alleged female caught 50 miles northwest of St.
Sei whale | Description
This allows the robot to reach a top speed of and an endurance of 25 hours at 3 knots.
Bluefin-21 | Design
Species such as humpbacks and blue whales are capable of travelling thousands of miles without feeding. Males typically mate with multiple females every year, but females only mate every two to three years. Calves are typically born in the spring and summer months and females bear all the responsibility for raising them. Mothers of some species fast and nurse their young for one to two years.
Whale | Introduction
They may forage the surface, underwater or even the ocean bottom. During courtship, males gather into large groups to compete for a single female, suggesting that sperm competition is an important factor in mating behavior. Although the blue whale is the largest animal on the planet, the testes of the right whale are actually ten times larger than those of the blue whale – with each weighing up to , they are by far the largest of any animal on Earth. Gestation tends to last a year, and calves are born at in weight and in length. Weaning occurs after eight months.
Right whale | Introduction
The track of the 52-hertz whale is unrelated to the presence or movement of other whale species. Its movements have been somewhat similar to that of blue whales, but its timing has been more like that of fin whales. It is detected in the Pacific Ocean every year beginning in August–December, and moves out of range of the hydrophones in January–February. It travels as far north as the Aleutian and Kodiak Islands, and as far south as the California coast, swimming between 30 and 70 km each day. Its recorded distance traveled per season has ranged from a low of 708 km to a high of 11,062 km in 2002–03.
52-hertz whale | Characteristics
The fastest land animal is the cheetah, which has a recorded speed of between and . The peregrine falcon is the fastest bird, and the fastest member of the animal kingdom, with a diving speed of . Among the fastest animals in the sea is the black marlin, with uncertain and conflicting reports of recorded speeds. When drawing comparisons between different classes of animals, an alternative unit is used for organisms: "body length per second". The fastest organism on earth, relative to its body length, is the Southern Californian mite, "Paratarsotomus macropalpis", which has a speed of 322 body lengths per second.
Fastest animals | Fastest organism
Antarctic krill swim in a metachronal fashion. They have several swimming modes which include hovering, fast-forward swimming and upside-down swimming. All these swimming modes have common metachronal pattern although their kinematics differ. Hovering (HOV), which is defined as the swimming mode corresponding to the body angles of 25-50° and normalized speeds less than half of a body length per second, is performed at lower pleopod amplitudes and lower beat frequencies as compared to fast-forward swimming (FFW). FFW is defined as the swimming mode corresponding to speeds higher than 2 body lengths per second without restriction to body angles. Typical swimming speeds in this study was found as 0.25, 4 and 1.6 body lengths per second, and typical beat frequencies were found as 3, 6.2 and 3.8 Hz for hovering, fast-forward swimming and upside-down swimming, respectively.
Metachronal swimming | Antarctic krill
When feeding, they blow 5–7 times in quick succession, but while traveling or resting will blow once every minute or two. On their terminal (last) dive they arch their back high out of the water, but rarely raise their flukes out of the water. They then dive to depths of up to when feeding or a few hundred feet when resting or traveling. The average feeding dive off California and Baja lasts 6 minutes, with a maximum of 17 minutes; when traveling or resting they usually dive for only a few minutes at a time.
Fin whale | Breathing
"Porpoising", also known as running, is a high speed surface behaviour of small cetaceans where long jumps are alternated with swimming close to the surface. Despite the name, porpoising behaviour is seen in dolphins and porpoises, as well as other marine species such as penguins and pinnipeds. When marine mammals are travelling at speed they are forced to stay close to the surface in order to maintain respiration for the energetic exercise. At leisurely cruising speeds below 4.6 m/s, dolphins swim below the water's surface and only briefly expose their blowholes along with up to one third of their body at any one time.
Cetacean surfacing behaviour | Porpoising
Dominant individuals may also display their body size while swimming at the water surface, and a subordinate will submit by holding its head at an acute angle with the jaws open before retreating underwater.
Crocodilia | Communication
Crabeater seals have a typical, serpentine gait when on ice or land, combining retractions of the foreflippers with undulations of the lumbar region. This method of locomotion leaves a distinctive sinuous body track and can be extremely effective. When not subject to overheating (i.e. on cold days), speeds on land of have been recorded for short distances. Satellite tracking data have resulted in conservative estimates of swimming speeds of 66 km/day and 12.7 km/h. While swimming, crabeaters have been known to engage in porpoising (leaping entirely out of the water) and spyhopping (raising the body vertically out of the water for visual inspection) behaviors.
Crabeater seal | Behavior
They are capable of swimming at speeds equivalent to two body lengths per second, with an acceleration time of five seconds. However, their weak muscles limit stamina considerably. Unlike their relatives living in more hospitable climates, deep-sea cephalopods cannot afford to expend energy in protracted flight. Given their low metabolic rate and the low density of prey at such depths, vampire squids must use innovative predator avoidance tactics to conserve energy. Their aforementioned bioluminescent "fireworks" are combined with the writhing of glowing arms, erratic movements, and escape trajectories, making it difficult for a predator to identify multiple targets.
Vampire squid | Behaviour
The reported average penis length varies but is usually mentioned to have an average length of . The most common reported average length is roughly but the average diameter is only , making the penis proportionately very long and thin. However, its girth has also been reported to be nearer , with a single ejaculation estimated to be about , based on the size of its testes each weighing . "Average" for a blue whale penis, however, is difficult to gauge given that the penis is unlikely to be able to be measured during sexual intercourse. The penis of the blue whale is normally hidden inside its body and jets out through a genital slit during intercourse.
Blue whale penis | Morphology
The average number of dives per day varies between 31 and 51. All cetaceans, including belugas, have physiological adaptations designed to conserve oxygen while they are under water. During a dive, these animals will reduce their heart rate from 100 beats a minute to between 12 and 20. Blood flow is diverted away from certain tissues and organs and towards the brain, heart and lungs, which require a constant oxygen supply. The amount of oxygen dissolved in the blood is 5.5%, which is greater than that found in land-based mammals and is similar to that of Weddell seals (a diving marine mammal).
Beluga whale | Swimming and diving
This bulbous expansion acts as a windkessel, ensuring a steady blood flow as the heart rate slows during diving. The arteries that leave the aortic arch are positioned symmetrically. There is no costocervical artery. There is no direct connection between the internal carotid artery and the vessels of the brain. Their circulatory system has adapted to dive at great depths, as much as for up to 120 minutes. More typical dives are around and 35 minutes in duration. Myoglobin, which stores oxygen in muscle tissue, is much more abundant than in terrestrial animals. The blood has a high density of red blood cells, which contain oxygen-carrying haemoglobin.
Sperm whale | Biological systems
Swimming evolved a number of times in unrelated lineages. Supposed jellyfish fossils occur in the Ediacaran, but the first free-swimming animals appear in the Early to Middle Cambrian. These are mostly related to the arthropods, and include the Anomalocaridids, which swam by means of lateral lobes in a fashion reminiscent of today's cuttlefish. Cephalopods joined the ranks of the nekton in the late Cambrian, and chordates were probably swimming from the Early Cambrian. Many terrestrial animals retain some capacity to swim, however some have returned to the water and developed the capacities for aquatic locomotion. Most apes (including humans), however, lost the swimming instinct.
Aquatic locomotion | Evolution of swimming
On average, females and juveniles blow every 12.5 seconds before dives, while large males blow every 17.5 seconds before dives. A sperm whale killed south of Durban, South Africa, after a 1-hour, 50-minute dive was found with two dogfish (Scymnodon sp.), usually found at the sea floor, in its belly. The sperm whale has the longest intestinal system in the world, exceeding 300 m in larger specimens. Similar to ruminants the sperm whale has a four-chambered stomach. The first secretes no gastric juices and has very thick muscular walls to crush the food (since whales cannot chew) and resist the claw and sucker attacks of swallowed squid.
Sperm whale | Biological systems
Now the term only applies to the latter species. It has also been referred to as the lesser fin whale because it somewhat resembles the fin whale. The American naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews compared the sei whale to the cheetah, because it can swim at great speeds "for a few hundred yards", but it "soon tires if the chase is long" and "does not have the strength and staying power of its larger relatives".
Sei whale | Etymology
A 2015 study linking shark size and typical swimming speed estimated that megalodon would have typically swum at –assuming that its body mass was typically –which is consistent with other aquatic creatures of its size, such as the fin whale ("Balaenoptera physalus") which typically cruises at speeds of . Its large size may have been due to climatic factors and the abundance of large prey items, and it may have also been influenced by the evolution of regional endothermy (mesothermy) which would have increased its metabolic rate and swimming speed. The otodontid sharks have been considered to have been ectotherms, so on that basis megalodon would have been ectothermic.
Megalodon | Average estimates
On February 20, 1991, Keltie Byrne, a 21-year-old marine biology student and competitive swimmer, slipped and fell into the pool containing Tilikum, Haida II and Nootka IV while working as a part-time Sealand of the Pacific trainer. The three orcas submerged her, dragging her around the pool and preventing her from surfacing. At one point, she reached the side and tried to climb out, but the orcas pulled her back into the pool. Other trainers threw her a life-ring, but the orcas kept her away from it, ignoring trainer's recall commands. She surfaced three times before drowning, and it was several hours before her body could be recovered from the pool.
Tilikum (killer whale) | First death
They have a near-neutral buoyancy (marginally negative, sinking) and are able to swim smoothly (not in jerks) at a relatively high speed, indicating that they are active predators. It is speculated that their relatively large heart—the largest among ostracods in both total and relative size—supports their active behavior, as well as their large eyes. When brought to the ocean surface, they have a slightly positive (floating) buoyancy, and their swimming is highly unstable and tumbling, but they are able to re-adjust to a near-neutral buoyancy and normal swimming pattern in less than a day. They change their buoyancy by adjusting the sulphate content of their haemolymph.
Gigantocypris | Appearance and behavior
The flukes are about a quarter to a fifth of the body length in width.
Omura's whale | Morphometrics
These plates are triangular in section with the largest, inward-facing side bearing fine hairs forming a filtering mat. Right whales are slow swimmers with large heads and mouths. Their baleen plates are narrow and very long — up to in bowheads — and accommodated inside the enlarged lower lip which fits onto the bowed upper jaw. As the right whale swims, a front gap between the two rows of baleen plates lets the water in together with the prey, while the baleens filter out the water. Rorquals such as the blue whale, in contrast, have smaller heads, are fast swimmers with short and broad baleen plates.
Filter feeder | Baleen whales
Their resting heart rate is 60 to 140 beats per minute (bpm), as opposed to the 60 to 100 bpm in humans. When diving, their heart rate will drop to 4 to 15 bpm to conserve oxygen. Like toothed whales, they have a dense network of blood vessels (rete mirabile) which prevents heat-loss. Like in most mammals, heat is lost in their extremities, so, in baleen whales, warm blood in the arteries is surrounded by veins to prevent heat loss during transport. As well as this, heat inevitably given off by the arteries warms blood in the surrounding veins as it travels back into the core.
Baleen whale | Internal systems
It refused the anchovies given to it – though it may have fed on a school of mackerels kept in the pool with it – and simply swam in a counter clockwise circle for 37 days before breaking through the nets on the morning of 2 January 1956, not long after three bottlenose dolphins had been introduced to the same pool.
Common minke whale | Captivity
When "spyhopping", the whale rises and holds a vertical position partially out of the water, often exposing its entire rostrum and head. It is visually akin to a human treading water. Spyhopping is controlled and slow, and can last for minutes at a time if the whale is sufficiently inquisitive about whatever it is viewing. Generally, the whale does not appear to swim by fluke propulsion to maintain its "elevated" position while spyhopping, instead relying on exceptional buoyancy control and positioning with pectoral fins. Typically the whale's eyes will be slightly above or below the surface of the water, enabling it to see whatever is nearby on the surface.
Cetacean surfacing behaviour | Spyhopping
Mediterranean population are generally smaller, reaching just above 20 m (65.5 ft) at maximum, or possibly up to . In the North Pacific, the longest reported were three 22.9 m (75 ft) males, two caught off California between 1919 and 1926 and the other caught off Alaska in 1925, and a 24.7 m (81 ft) female also caught off California, while the longest reliably measured were a 21 m (69 ft) male caught off British Columbia in 1959 and a 22.9 m (75 ft) female caught off central California between 1959 and 1970.
Fin whale | Size
Whales have torpedo shaped bodies with non-flexible necks, limbs modified into flippers, non-existent external ear flaps, a large tail fin, and flat heads (with the exception of monodontids and ziphiids). Whale skulls have small eye orbits, long snouts (with the exception of monodontids and ziphiids) and eyes placed on the sides of its head. Whales range in size from the and dwarf sperm whale to the and blue whale. Overall, they tend to dwarf other cetartiodactyls; the blue whale is the largest creature on earth. Several species have female-biased sexual dimorphism, with the females being larger than the males. One exception is with the sperm whale, which has males larger than the females.
Whale | Anatomy
Mark W. Denny (born 1951) is a professor of biology at Stanford University. His research on the intertidal zone of wave-swept shores has led to increased understanding of this habitat. His most publicized research is his work on locomotion of water striders, which led to the coining of the term "Denny's paradox" to explain a discrepancy between physics and previous understanding of how surface-dwelling animals such as these insects move. In 2008 he examined greyhounds, thoroughbred horses and human athletes trying to find their maximum running speed. He predicted the fastest possible time for men's 100 metres will be 9.48 seconds.
Mark Denny | Introduction
Extreme penis elongation has been observed in the deep water squid "Onykia ingens". When erect, the penis may be as long as the mantle, head, and arms combined (Arkhipkin & Laptikhovsky, 2010:299; Walker, 2010). As such, deep water squids have the greatest known penis length relative to body size of all mobile animals, second in the entire animal kingdom only to certain sessile barnacles (Arkhipkin & Laptikhovsky, 2010:300).
Cephalopod size | Reproductive organs
Cetaceans excel in streamlined body shape and the up-and-down movements of their flukes make them fast swimmers; the tucuxi, for example, can reach speeds of . The considerably slower sirenians can also propel themselves with their fluke, but they can also walk on the bottom with their forelimbs. The earless seals (Phocidae) swim by moving their hind-flippers and lower body from side to side, while their fore-flippers are mainly used for steering. They are clumsy on land, and move on land by lunging, bouncing and wiggling while their fore-flippers keep them balanced; when confronted with predators, they retreat to the water as freshwater phocids have no aquatic predators.
Aquatic mammal | Adaptations
One whale will typically begin to exhale out of their blowhole beneath the surface at the school of fish to begin the process. More whales will also start to blow bubbles while continuing to circle their prey. They corral the fish into a tight circle while creating a net of bubbles to surround the fish and keep them from escaping. The size of the net created can range from three to thirty meters in diameter. One whale will sound a feeding call, at which point all whales simultaneously swim upwards with mouths open to feed on the trapped fish. As the whales swim up to the surface to feed they can hold up to 15,000 gallons of sea water as they use their baleen plates to strain the water to get the maximum amount of fish they need.
Bubble-net feeding | Method
According to Maciolek (1974): The animal swims with its legs extended fan-like and symmetrically in a plane below the body. Usually it does so close to the substrate (lava), occasionally in mid-water, and sometimes along the underside of the surface film.
Procaris hawaiana | Behaviour
This results in little splashing as they have a very streamlined shape. Porpoising occurs mainly when dolphins and porpoises are swimming at speeds greater than 4.6 m/s. Here, jump length is roughly equal to distance traveled when the cetaceans are submerged. This exposes the blowhole for longer which is needed to get enough oxygen to maintain metabolism and therefore high speeds over long periods of time. Studies have also shown that leaping is more energetically efficient than swimming above a certain threshold speed. This is due to the reduction in friction when travelling in air compared to water which saves more energy than is needed to produce the leap.
Cetacean surfacing behaviour | Porpoising
Most cephalopods float (i.e. are neutrally buoyant), so do not need to swim to remain afloat. Squid swim more slowly than fish, but use more power to generate their speed. The loss in efficiency is due to the amount of water the squid can accelerate out of its mantle cavity. Jellyfish use a one-way water cavity design which generates a phase of continuous cycles of jet-propulsion followed by a rest phase. The Froude efficiency is about 0.09, which indicates a very costly method of locomotion. The metabolic cost of transport for jellyfish is high when compared to a fish of equal mass.
Aquatic locomotion | Jet propulsion
The Icelandic Phallological Museum has a portion of a blue whale's penis measuring long and weighing , which "Iceland Review" has dubbed "a real Moby Dick". The specimen is just the tip, as the entire organ, when intact, would have been about long and weighed about , well above average for even a blue whale. By comparison, an adult elephant's penis is the largest penis of any land animal at on average.
Blue whale penis | Largest specimen
These thinner areas deform passively at normal speeds and must be kept rigid at higher speeds serving to limit maximum sustainable speed in rajiform swimmers.
Batoid locomotion | Rajiform swimming
In the Northern Hemisphere, the average size of adult males and females is about , respectively, averaging 38.5 and 50.5 tonnes (42.5 and 55.5 tons), while in the Southern Hemisphere, it is , weighing 52.5 and 63 tonnes (58 and 69.5 tons). In the North Atlantic, the longest reported were a 24.4 m (80 ft) male caught off Shetland in 1905 and a female caught off Scotland sometime between 1908 and 1914, while the longest reliably measured were three 20.7 m (68 ft) males caught off Iceland in 1973–74 and a 22.5 m (74 ft) female also caught off Iceland in 1975.
Fin whale | Size