Talk:Blue whale

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This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 24, 2005.

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May 18, 2005	Featured article candidate	Promoted
April 22, 2006	Featured article review	Kept
July 9, 2007	Featured article review	Kept

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"Caught"/"killed"

Ywaz, you do need to realize that "catch" is the standard terminology used in all wildlife harvesting (which is what whaling is, Japanese pretensions notwithstanding). We don't speak about "killing" fish either. I appreciate that whales elicit a more emotional response, but when our articles on whaling overwhelmingly use "catch", this looks incongruous at the least. --Elmidae (talk · contribs)

Female weight gain of 4% per day mathematically impossible

In the article it states "Pregnant females gain roughly four percent of their body weight daily,[86] amounting to 60% of their overall body weight throughout summer foraging periods."

However, that is clearly not right, as this would mean that female whales approximately triple/quadruple their weight every month. You can see how that would lead to bizarre situations.

I am not aware of what this figure should be or what the author was thinking when writing this. Perhaps they meant eat 4% of body weight.

Blue Whale max weight

According to this new study a blue whale could potential reach 270 tons or more.

https://peerj.com/articles/16978/ Wilt Carter (talk) 18:16, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Icthyotitan

Given the tier of article this is, I'm asking here rather than just editing, but I feel the recent description of Ichthyotitan should be added to Note A at the end of the second sentence of the introduction. This has already been added to the introduction of Largest and heaviest animals as a caveat to the blue whale's status as the largest animal ever known to have existed. Given the estimates for the size of the Aust specimen put its likely weight (not yet formally estimated) as equal to or greater than the blue whale's, I'd suggest that this take precedence in the note over the estimates of Perucetus' size and weight, which are at present controversial.

I feel this information could also be added to the "Size" section of the article, as it only mentions "certain shastasaurid icthyosaurs" at present, so it seems it would benefit from the more formal description of Icthyotitan being added. FreeBard42 (talk) 13:11, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]