Instead of teeth, the Blue Whale has bony rods (baleen) which hang down from the roof of its mouth. The bony rods in the mouth of a Blue Whale are black in color and full of bristles. When a Blue Whale finds a dense (thick) cloud of krill, it opens its mouth wide, charges into the cloud and takes a big gulp. With each gulp, its huge tongue, the size of an elephant, pushes upward and squeezes a mouthfull of water out through the bristles. The tiny krill, trapped behind bristles, are flushed back into its stomach with the next big gulp.

When whales were not yet whales, about 50 million years ago, they took to sea and they learned to swim in the warm, tropical ocean. These ancestors of the Blue Whale had real teeth. Some whales have kept their teeth and still chase and snap at fish. Other whales, called baleen whales, learned to catch krill and have lost their teeth.

Some baleen whales, the skimmers, have completely forgotten what it was like to chase and snap after their food. They just cruise around in the ocean with their mouths open and let the krill pour in. Other whales, the gulpers, like Big Blue, still remember and start snapping and squeezing when they find a big cloud of krill.

Previous Page.......................Next Page