blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) Author George Brown Goode (1851–1896)
Description
English: The Sulphur Bottom of the Pacific -- Sibbaldius sulfureus, Cope
Subject: Whales
Tag: Aquatic Mammals
Date 1884
Source/Photographer
English: Goode, George Brown (1884) Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States: Section I, Natural History of Useful Aquatic Animals, Plates, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FMIB_50845_Sulphur_Bottom_of_the_Pacific.jpeg
The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal belonging to the baleen whales (Mysticeti). It is the largest animal known to have ever existed. Blue whales were abundant in nearly all the oceans on Earth but their numbers have been greatly reduced due to whaling.