My Science School

A blue whale is the largest known animal, found in oceans around the world, except the Arctic.

It grows up to 110 feet in length and 150 tonnes in weight. Did you know its tongue alone can weigh as much as an elephant?

Its diet consists exclusively of krill, which are tiny shrimp-like creatures. It eats tonnes of them at times.

They spend summers feeding in polar waters and undertake long migrations towards the Equator as winter arrives.

It makes a range of sounds to communicate and navigate. It is among the loudest animals on the planet.

These marine marvels are a species of ‘baleen’ whale. Instead of teeth, they have baleen, a fibrous material used to filter their food. When eating, the whale lets a huge volume of water and krill into its mouth. It then pushes the water through its 300-400 baleen plates, which trap the tasty grub to be swallowed. Gulp!

Sadly, in the late 19th early 20th century, blue whales were heavily hunted. And despite a global hunting ban in 1966, their population has declined by 70-90 percent in the past 150 years. With only 10,000-25,000 left in the wild, these magnificence marine mammals are today classified as an endangered species.

Picture Credit : Google

Praying mantis, a large group of insects found in tropical and temperate habitats.

Most of them are ambush predators. It uses its spiked forelegs to grasp its prey. Moths, crickets, grasshoppers and flies are its favourite food. But larger species in its family (mantidae) even prey on lizards.

It earned its common name – praying mantis, because of the way its front legs are bent and held together at an angle that suggests the position of prayer.

It has triangular heads on along thorax. Did you know it can turn its head 180 degrees to scan its surroundings?

Try to sneak up on a praying mantis, and you may be startled when it looks over its shoulder at you. No other insect can do so. Praying mantids have a flexible joint between the head and prothorax that enables them to swivel their heads. This ability, along with their rather humanoid faces and long, grasping forelegs, endears them to even the most entomophobic people among us.

The female praying mantis deposits her eggs on a twig or stem in the fall ?and then protects them with a Styrofoam-like substance she secretes from her body. This forms a protective egg case, or ootheca, in which her offspring will develop over the winter. Mantid egg cases are easy to spot in the winter when leaves have fallen from shrubs and trees. But be forewarned! If you bring an overwintering ootheca into your warm home, you may find your house teeming with tiny mantids.

Picture Credit : Google