Species profile
Balaenoptera musculus
Blue whale
This is a curated published estimate, not a live census. Estimates may refer to mature individuals, wild individuals or a documented range and are not directly comparable between species.
EN · Endangered — Endangered — very high risk of extinction in the wild
About this species
Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is part of the curated SpeciesWatch catalogue and is classified as Endangered. The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived — longer than three buses and heavier than any dinosaur, with a heart the size of a small car. Its recorded population direction is increasing. That is encouraging, but it does not remove continuing pressures or make every population secure.
Habitat, behaviour and ecological role
This profile associates the species with marine, pelagic. These labels summarise environments used during different stages of its life rather than drawing an exact range boundary. A blue whale's call can reach 188 decibels and travel hundreds of kilometres underwater, making it one of the loudest sounds produced by any animal. Its anatomy and behaviour are responses to those environments, while movement can connect distant places requiring different forms of management.
Why this species is at risk
Despite its size, the blue whale feeds almost exclusively on tiny krill, swallowing up to four tonnes of them a day during feeding season. The catalogue records 4 principal pressures for this profile: Vessel strikes, Ocean noise pollution, Climate change, Ship collisions. They should not be treated as isolated causes. Habitat change, exploitation, pollution, disease and climate stress can reinforce one another, while the importance of each pressure varies between regions and through time.
Conservation outlook
Climate monitoring and protection of ecological refuges are needed because reducing other pressures improves the capacity to adapt. Actions need long-term monitoring and revision as evidence changes; a positive intervention in one place does not by itself represent recovery across the species.
Editorial review: 2026-08-21
Threat factors
Known occurrences
Dots are georeferenced occurrence records from OBIS (marine) and GBIF (global), not individual animals and not a complete range map. Up to 500 recent API results are cached; the profile renders at most 500 points.
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Listen to this species
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