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50 free Blue Whale trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This blue whale trivia quiz covers the biggest animal ever known: how long and heavy it really gets, why Linnaeus may have named it after a mouse, what 'sulphur bottom' means, how it lunges through 220 tonnes of water to strain out four tonnes of krill a day, why its heart can slow to two beats a minute, how scientists count its earwax to age it, and why its songs are getting deeper. It also covers the four subspecies and the mystery Chilean population, blue-fin whale hybrids, the orcas that hunt calves, the 30,000-whale peak year of 1930-31, the Soviet Union's illegal hunting after the 1966 ban, ship strikes off California and Sri Lanka, and the recovery to perhaps 10,000-25,000 animals today. Every question was verified against a primary reference (the Wikipedia article on the blue whale) and carries a citation. Play it with our humpback whale, ocean and whale shark quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What distinction does the blue whale hold among all animals?
Largest ever known to have existed
Confirmed lengths reach 29.9-30.5 m and weights up to 190-200 tonnes.
Q 02What is the blue whale's scientific name?
Balaenoptera musculus
B. physalus is the fin whale, Megaptera the humpback and Balaena the bowhead.
Q 03The species name 'musculus' may be a Linnaean pun meaning what?
Little mouse
It can mean 'muscle' or be a diminutive of 'mouse'; the genus name Balaenoptera means 'winged whale'.
Q 04Whalers nicknamed the blue whale 'sulphur bottom' because of what?
A yellowish tinge of diatoms on the belly
Herman Melville mentions 'sulphur bottom' whales in Moby-Dick.
Q 05The name 'blue whale' derives from the Norwegian 'blåhval', coined by which whaling pioneer?
Svend Foyn
He had just perfected the harpoon gun; the scientist G. O. Sars adopted the name in 1874.
Q 06Which Scottish naturalist described a blue whale stranded in the Firth of Forth in 1692?
Robert Sibbald
For a long time the species was known as 'Sibbald's rorqual'.
Q 07How many blue whale subspecies are traditionally recognised?
Four
Northern, Antarctic, pygmy and Northern Indian Ocean, with the Chilean population a possible fifth.
Q 08Which other rorqual does the blue whale interbreed with?
The fin
About 3.5% of the North Atlantic blue whale genome comes from such crosses; the hybrids can even be fertile.
Q 09Whole-genome sequencing shows the blue whale is most closely related to which species?
The sei
Gray whales come next as a sister group.
Q 10How many black baleen plates line a blue whale's upper jaw?
70 to 400
Each is under a metre long; 60-88 throat grooves let the mouth balloon during feeding.
Q 11How high can a blue whale's blow reach?
9 to 12 metres
It has two blowholes, like all baleen whales.
Q 12What was the length of the longest blue whale ever scientifically measured, captured in the Panama Canal?
29.9 metres
Its neck vertebrae confirmed the figure; a 33.6 m record exists but is unverified, and models suggest 33 m is the physical limit.
Q 13Which sex of blue whale is larger?
The cows
Antarctic females average about 130 tonnes to males' 112.
Q 14The record female blue whale, caught in 1947, weighed how much?
Q 21What is the deepest dive reported from a tagged blue whale?
315 metres
A pygmy blue whale managed 506 m; the longest measured dive lasted 15.2 minutes.
Q 22What does the blue whale's diet consist of almost exclusively?
Krill
The Northern Indian Ocean subspecies is the exception, feeding mostly on sergestid shrimp.
Q 23How much water can a blue whale engulf in a single lunge?
220 tonnes
It opens its mouth up to 80 degrees, then squeezes the water out through the baleen with its throat pouch and tongue.
On average, how much krill does a blue whale eat per day?
190 tonnes
She was 27.6 m long; estimates ran as high as 199 tonnes.
Q 15How much did the heart of a stranded North Atlantic blue whale weigh, the largest known in any animal?
180 kg
By contrast its brain weighs only about 3.6 kg.
Q 16Roughly how long is the male blue whale's penis, the largest in the animal kingdom?
About 3 metres
It is around 30 cm wide.
Q 17What do scientists examine to estimate a blue whale's age?
Its earwax
Each year lays down a light and a dark layer of wax; the oldest found this way was 110.
Q 18What was the age of the oldest blue whale found using the ear-plug method?
110 years
They typically live 80-90 years or more.
Q 19How fast do blue whales usually cruise?
2 to 8 km/h
They can sprint to 32-48 km/h when disturbed, though the best estimate of a true maximum is around 27 km/h.
Q 20How low can a blue whale's heart rate drop during a deep dive?
2 beats per minute
On surfacing it rises to about 37 bpm, near its peak.
4 tonnes
One mouthful can yield up to 240 times the energy the lunge costs.
Q 25What manoeuvre have blue whales been recorded performing during lunge-feeding?
A 180-degree roll
It may help them scan the krill field and find the densest patch.
Q 26Which population feeds mainly on sergestid shrimp rather than krill?
The Northern Indian Ocean
To do it they dive deeper and longer than other blue whales, about 10.7 minutes on average.
Q 27How long is a blue whale's gestation?
10 to 12 months
Calves are 6-7 m long and 2-3 tonnes at birth.
Q 28Roughly how much weight does a newborn blue whale calf gain each day?
About 90 kg
Mothers likely produce around 220 kg of milk a day; calves wean at 6-8 months and 16 m long.
Q 29When was the first video of a blue whale calf thought to be nursing filmed?
2016, in New Zealand
Mother-calf pairs are rarely seen, perhaps because calves are born and weaned between feeding seasons.
Q 30What is the fundamental frequency range of blue whale vocalisations?
8 to 25 Hz
That is mostly below human hearing; the calls reach 188 decibels.