5 things you never knew about a whale's heart

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Between Valentine’s Day and American Heart Month, you probably have hearts on the mind this February.  Check out these facts of the heart of the world's largest creature, the Blue Whale. 

• A blue whale’s heart is the biggest on the planet, weighing 400 pounds. That’s the weight of about 35 gallon paint cans. By comparison, the heart of an African elephant, the largest land creature, weighs about 30 pounds. Interestingly, an elephant’s heart is 5% of an elephant’s weight, but a blue whale’s heart is only 1% - however the whale’s immense weight is supported by water. At 16 ounces, your heart is half a percent of your body weight.
• Is a blue whale’s heart really the size of a small car? In 2015, a dissection team in Canada extracted and measured a blue whale’s heart from a whale that washed ashore. No, it wasn’t as big as a Volkswagon – more like a small golf cart. (Still big.)
• A blue whale’s heartbeat slows dramatically during dives to over 1,000 feet. In one study, a diving blue whale’s heart slowed to 4-8 beats a minute, with an extreme low of only two beats, a drastic measure to save oxygen.  Amazingly, between those beats, the aortic artery contracted to keep blood moving. When the whale came to the surface to breathe, its heart raced to 25-37 beats a minute. Scientists think that that a whale’s heart works close to physical limits and cannot beat faster, which is why whales have reached their largest size possible.
• The aorta measures over 9 inches. That's the size of a dinner plate. Bon Appetit!
• And the best fact of all: a blue whale’s heartbeat can be detected from 2 MILES AWAY.

Read More:
A Blue Whale Had His Heartbeat Taken for the First Time Ever — And Scientists Are Shocked https://www.livescience.com/first-blue-whale-heartbeat.html
National Geographic: Education Blog – How Big is a Blue Whale’s Heart? https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2015/08/31/how-big-is-a-blue-whales-heart/