Blue Whales

The largest animal ever to exist on earth is the Blue Whale. It belongs to a species of cetacean mammals called Balaenopteridaes. There are 3 different kinds of subspecies: the balaenoptera musculus which is found in the Northern Hemisphere, the balaenoptera intermedia which is found in the Southern Hemisphere, and the balaenoptera brevicauda which is found in the Tropical Southern Hemisphere.

They can grow to a length of 33m (110ft) and weigh 190 tons but on the average it is much smaller. The Blue whale is called a "rorqual" a Norwegian word for "furrow" and refers to the pleated grooves running from its chin to its navel.

The throat grooves, in addition to streamlining the shape of the whale, allow the throat area (cavum vent-rale) to greatly expand during feeding, and can allow it to hold 1,000 tons or more of food and water when fully expanded. By taking tons of water into its mouth and filtering out the fish or krill with its baleen plates a medium-sized Blue whale can eat over 4 tons of krill a day.

The head of the whale forms up to a quarter of the total body length and compared with other rorquals is very broad. It has twin blowholes with exceptionally large fleshy splashguards to the front and sides. The baleen plates in the mouth can be 90cm-1m (35-39in) in length the longest of all the rorquals but not the longest of all whales.

Today most live in the Southern Hemisphere but smaller populations inhabit the North Atlantic and North Pacific. They migrate long distances between low latitude winter mating grounds and high latitude summer feeding grounds and are often seen in parts of California, Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez), Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada and the northern Indian Ocean.

Before man started hunting them there were 228,000 Blue Whales swimming the oceans of the world. Between 1904 and 1978, whalers killed thousands, mostly against the law in the southern hemisphere. It is believed there are only about 11,700 animals left. They are on the endangered list, protected since 1967 worldwide by international law. Find out more at: www.bigsurcalifornia.org/whalesblue

Research info gathered at: http://www.wikipedia.org/

Now, here's two tons of one of my poems:

Landscaping The Future

in scene 6 the script calls for
patches of the hellgate world
to suck a gree-swollen hill
of all its exhaust-resistant
trees then surround innocent
saplings in a solid schoolyard
circle piercing every crease
and crevice while the sky turns
pure purple but on the other
side of town it's 1999 in a honey
-only club as a waitress appears
on cue wearing a submachine
gun smile in halo heels hooked
on phonics and stuffed in a skimpy
dress that barely conceals her sung
song with padded hips and goldfish
legs all to no avail as every patron
stares in unison towards center
stage where a lone spotlight
illuminates several feather pen
strokes of flesh in an apricot hue
until darkness pales in between
and the dancer pauses to gain her
balance just before stepping into the
next millenia to cat calls and wild
applause that almost sounds holy.

Poem first published at: http://dash30dash.com/
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Poem Copyright 2008 by Maurice Oliver. All Rights Reserved.