Blue whales. Balaenoptera musculus. One of the most amazing big animals I have ever seen. I’ll never forget the first time I saw one. I was just down from a summer of Alaska trips and had seen a lot of humpback whales. Loads of humpback whales. We were on our way into Ensenada from Guadalupe great white sharks when I saw 2 x 30 foot high “blows” in front of us as we approached the shallow underwater ridge (and feeding ground) off Baja. And then we saw the blue whales. The size was almost unfatho

Blue whale vocalizations are very low frequency sounds with some in the 15 Hz range. These tones characteristically travel long distances due to the high power, but also due to very long-wavelengths (over 300 feet for 15 Hz). This enables their songs to be heard thousands of miles from the source. We can assume that the projection distance is important (Nature can be extravagant, but she is never wasteful), but we can only speculate why they need to broadcast their songs across ocean basins. The