Whales are huge and heavy giants
The largest whale, the blue whale, grows about 30 meters long. Some of them weight more than 120 tons, while the normal weight of an elephant is not more than seven tons. A whale two or three tons of food at a single meal.
Whales are the largest animals in the sea. Their lungs as well as stomachs are as large as the rooms in our houses. We could walk about inside whale’s stomach. Some years ago there was a report in the newspapers about a man who did so.
This man was swallowed alive by a whale, which was then caught by his companions. When they opened the whale and took him out, he was in a faint, but not dead. His face and hands had suffered serious burns, while his clothes and shoes had protected the rest of the body. When he came to himself, he told his friends what had happened inside the whale.
He walked about n the sea giant’s stomach, feeling its walls in the darkness to see if here was any outlet through which he could escape. He found none. He was wondering what to do, next when the whale began to digest him. Hi face and hands were burnt by the digestive aids of the whale’s stomach.
If whales eat so many tons of food at each meal, you may wonder how there is any fish left in the sea for us to catch! But the oceans are vast, and not all whales eat fish. The blue whales live wholly on plankton. A stomach of plankton is spread over miles and miles of sea water.
Next in size to the blue whale is the sperm whale. It grows to a length of almost 18 meters. Inside its huge skull, there are large spaces filled with clear oil called `spermaceti’, which is used in making candles and cosmetics. It is form this `spermaceti’ that `sperm’ whales get their name.
Sperms whales are powerful divers. They dive about 500 meters deep in the sea and fight fierce battles with the giant squid. Their battle may sometimes go on for a whole day before the whale can swallow the squid.
But whales cannot breathe under water. If water got their lungs, they would drown just as we would. When these animals want to breathe, they come up to the surface o the water, draw in a breath o air and go down again.
Whales that kill are the fierce killer whales. These are small whales, about four to six meters long and three or four tons n eight. They get together in packs and mercilessly kill any animal or human they catch sight of. The will even kill a blue whale.
About the same size as the killer whales, but very different from them in nature, are the dolphins. These are remarkable good- natured creatures.
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