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The blue hulk is the largest animal have a go at it to ever hold out on Earth , weigh in at 330,000 British pound sterling ( 150,000 kg ) and stretch up to 108 feet ( 33 metre ) . Despite the whale ’s size of it , scientists have worry locating and analyse the cetacean mammal in the wideness of the ocean , leaving many inquiry about the mammal ’s life history , specially its pairing and courting behaviors .
Blue whales(Balaenoptera musculus ) are found worldwide , with dissimilar regional populations form trenchant subspecies . scientist believe they reach sexual maturity between 5 and 15 old age of age , and have a gestation period that lasts 10 to 12 month . Mating and have take place during the wintertime , though the animals do n’t appear to have a primed breeding ground , said Richard Sears , a cetaceous research worker with the Mingan Island Cetacean Study .
A blue whale spouts off Moresby Island, British Columbia, Canada. The sex lives of these whales remain mysterious, as scientists have never documented the behemoths mating.
Unlike other baleen whales , or those whales that use so - call baleen plates to filter flyspeck moment of food from brine , blue whales typically travel alone . But in late July and early August , they start to organise pairs , where a male person will fall out a female person around for weeks on end . " I think this pairing up is sort of like go steady , " Sears told LiveScience , adding that sex between the couplet is n’t a foregone finis . [ See arresting exposure of Whales ]
Sometimes a second male person will approach the pair , at which full stop the trio will take off in a sort of race along the surface of the weewee . It ’s unclear who initiate the race , but it ’s potential that the female does it to see which male is more physically fit , Sears said . During the wash , the female ’s initial date must keep up with his potential mate , while warding off advances from the other male — this sometimes results in strong-arm contact lens between the males , admit tail slashes and head - butts .
dismal whales are bonk to produce vocalizations , which likely have " some variety of reproductive function , " said Catherine Berchok , a cetacean researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . Berchok once record two males making loud call to one another for 10 minutes while they were bob a female , though such " contact calls " typically do n’t last nearly as long . Males also have a sort of song that may be used to court females , she say .
However , scientists do n’t sleep with how a female person chooses a match .
Blue whale coupling has never been documented , Sears said . As with other whales , it ’s credibly a very abbreviated face-off , with the male person insert his penis into the female ’s vagina for less than a second . [ The 7 Weirdest Animal Penises ]
Interestingly , humpback whales , which are tight related to blue whale , are known to mesh in threesomes , with two males bottom a female at the same time . It ’s unsung if dreary whales perform similar intimate acts .
