Welcome to Fast Facts with Reasons for Hope, I’m Carl Kerby.
Today, we’re going to dive deep into the heart of the Blue Whale. Get it?
The heart of a Blue Whale is huge … it’s five feet long, four feet wide, and five feet tall! That’s about the size of a golf cart! It also weighs in at 400 pounds! That’s 640 times the weight of a human heart!
The coolest feature about the Blue Whale’s heart is that as the whale comes to the water’s surface, the heart will beat about 25 to 35 beats per minute, filling the heart with oxygen-rich blood. Then, as that Gentle Giant dives deep, the heart slows way down … sometimes as low as 2 beats per minute! This means that the whale can save oxygen and stay under water longer.
One other thing … when the Blue Whale surfaces, its aortic valve expands very quickly, but as it descends, the valve deflates slowly over time, steadily releasing 58 gallons of oxygen rich blood per beat to all of its organs!
There’s even more, but we’ll have to save it for next time. Until then, stay bold!
Carl Kerby is the founder of Reasons for Hope and co-creator of the DeBunked apologetic video series. His radio feature, Fast Facts, is heard weekly on VCY America, Saturdays at 9:25 AM Central.
