sperm whale fluke (Physeter macrocephalus)

The Blue Whale – Giant of the Animal Kingdom

I am the largest of all 80 types of whale. My body weight is many times more than that of the largest dinosaurs. In fact, I am the largest animal that has ever existed on earth. To match my weight, you would have to bring together a herd of 28 elephants, or 170 oxen. If you wanted to match my weight with human beings, you would need 2,000 people. If you wanted to compare me with the smallest animal – Suvi’s pygmy shrew – I weigh 70 million times more than he does! I can even dazzle you with my length. At 33 metres long, I am the longest creature of all. I would easily be longer than a column of 4 buses. (...))

But you think I’m just a shapeless mountain of meat and fat? Don’t jump to conclusions! I can effortlessly dive to a depth of 200 metres, and it’s no problem for me to keep my course even in strong currents. If I swim on the surface, I can move at a speed of 28 km/h. To do that, I have to generate 1,175 horsepower, which, in turn, requires 20,000 litres of oxygen per minute. But if I swim at the same speed under water, it only takes me 168 horsepower, and that means only 3,000 litres of oxygen. My lungs hold a volume of 3,000 litres; that’s enough air to fill 750 balloons.

Fluke High Performance Engine

You might well be fascinated with my gigantic whale-tail, which is known as the fluke. In contrast to those of fish, whose tails are vertical, ours are horizontal. (...) If I want to dive, I force it the other way. The fluke forms a surface of 10 square metres. It has been made in a most complicated way, so that it can fulfil its purpose without any problems. I use my fluke to propel myself, but I also use it to stabilise and steer myself. To propel myself, I drive my fluke in a sort of turning motion, the axis of which would form an extension of my spine. It’s true that I can’t move it in a full circle like a ship’s screw, but I always turn it to the same extent in one direction, and then in the other. But the working principle is pretty much the same. In my world-wide migrations, I easily maintain a long-term speed of 35 km/h. Sometimes, I accelerate my gigantic body to a speed of 50 km/h. Our body shape and skin are so formed that we are able to propel ourselves with the highest possible degree of efficiency. If your fluid dynamics engineers could make a model of our body, and equip it with the same power engine that our bodies possess, we would still swim significantly faster than their model. The Creator provided us with a special skin, which helps us to save energy. It enables us to reduce turbulence in the water streaming over our bodies, and transform it into laminar flow with reduced resistance. This occurs, among other things, through the extra smoothness of our skin. This captures a portion of the turbulent energy of the water, and achieves a damping effect of the vortices near the surface of our skin over our entire body.

Doesn’t the Creator perfect some new miracle in each one of our species? Each one of us originates in just as microscopically small an egg as that of a mouse, or of a human.

 

continued: The Sperm Whale – Record Holder in Deepsea Diving

* quotes from the book "If Animals Could Talk"

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