The blue whale is the largest animal in the world. Like all whales, as soon as the baby is born it is able to swim. The baby blue whale is the size of a school bus! The heart of this baby is as big as a small car!

The stomach of a blue whale can hold as much as 2,000 pounds of food. The mother blue whale feeds its baby. It gains 200 pounds a day. The calf gains eight pounds an hour for the first six months of its life.

The blue whale makes a lot of noise. It is the loudest of all animals. When it is traveling, it makes a loud rumbling sound. This sound carries through the water for a very long way. It is how the whale gets in touch with other blue whales. It travels alone or with one other whale.

The blue whale can dive under water for 60 minutes. That means it can hold its breath for 1 hour! It can dive down over 300 feet in the ocean. Blue whales live in all the oceans of the world.