BLUE WHALE MOTHER SHOWS UP WITH HER CALF
The past weeks blue whales have been showing up more or less daily. But today we got a very special surprise out at sea: A blue whale mother showed up with her calf. Blue whale calves stay with their mother for at least a year. They are born with a size of up to 7 meters and weigh about 2 tons at that time. Calves are weaned for about 7 months and after their first year of life they weigh up to 26 tons and have reached a size of approximately 12 meters. Even though that is an immense size, next to its mother today’s calf looked very small and cute. It was swimming up close to our boats, quite curious about what was going on. That made its mother follow ad therefore, we got close up views onto the largest animals on earth.
- Sarah
Photos: Miroslav Cibul'a
The blue whale calf and its mother swimming next to each other.
At some point the mother started to feed close to the surface. She was lying on her side, lifting the flipper and showing her huge mouth. The calf meanwhile decided to check our boats out.
