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#4069

2006 39c Blue Whale, Loudest Animal

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U.S. #4069
Blue Whale
Wonders of America

 

Issue Date: May 27, 2006
City:
Washington, DC
Quantity Issued: 204,000,000
Printed by: Avery Dennison
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforation: Serpentine die cut 10 ¾
Color: Multicolored

 

Th...  more

U.S. #4069
Blue Whale
Wonders of America

 

Issue Date: May 27, 2006
City:
Washington, DC
Quantity Issued: 204,000,000
Printed by: Avery Dennison
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforation: Serpentine die cut 10 ¾
Color: Multicolored

 

The world’s loudest animal, the blue whale has a call that reaches levels of 188 decibels and travels through hundreds of miles of ocean. In comparison, a jet engine only reaches 140 decibels.

 

The blue whale is the largest animal that ever lived, up to 100 feet long and 196 tons. When born, the blue whale calf is about 23 feet long and 5,000 to 6,000 pounds. The calf gains weight from its mother’s fat-rich milk at a rate of up to 10 pounds an hour!

 

The adult blue whale feeds almost exclusively on small, shrimp-like creatures called krill. A baleen whale, it has hundreds of fringed, overlapping plates hanging from its upper jaw. The whale takes in krill and water, then squeezes out the water through the baleen plates; the remaining krill are swallowed.

 

With speeds up to 30 miles per hour, the blue whale was too fast for early whalers’ hand-thrown harpoons. They were no match, however, for harpoon cannons. By 1966, the whales were so scarce that the International Whaling Commission declared them protected.

 

Today, blue whales are considered an endangered species, with only about 12,000 remaining. The largest concentration in the world, approximately 2,000, feed off the coast of California in the summer and fall.


 

 
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