How big is a narwhale and beluga whale?
An adult Beluga whale can weigh between 0.4-1.5 tons while an adult Narwhal can weigh between 0.8-1.6 tons. Why are whales big? (received from Ryan in Philadelphia, PA) Q. Why do whales get as big as they do? A. This is a great question! Why do (or did, in the case of dinosaurs) animals grow so large? Even dinosaurs could not reach the same size as the largest of all animals, the blue whale. Only a medium such as water could support an animal of such enormous size. So water buoyancy has allowed whales to attain their enormous sizes, but why has it happened? Having a large body size is actually a great way of generating and holding heat. This is particularly important in the ocean where the cold water can zap away body heat up to 20 times faster than on land. Ecologist Adrian Forsyth writes that “a single blue whale is as massive and burns as much energy as the entire human population of a 2,000 resident North American town.” If this whale lived on land, over-heating would be a serious
