Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
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Quick answers
Are blue whales recovering like some humpbacks?
Some Northern Hemisphere stocks look better. Antarctic blues remain far below pre-whaling. EN is still the honest card.
What did 1966 change?
The IWC protected blue whales after the factory-ship years had already taken the Antarctic majority. Protection was a lock on an empty room in the south.
Is the 1982 moratorium a blue-whale law?
It is a commercial-whaling pause for many species. Blues were already protected; the moratorium is the political weather that kept factory ships from a sequel.
Why ecological role near the top?
A blue whale eats tonnes of krill and returns nutrients in faecal plumes; a fall feeds the benthos. In this atlas that pump outranks most terrestrial carnivores except elephants and wolves.
Did Roger Payne study blues?
Payne whale-song fame is mostly humpback. Blue-whale acoustics (low-frequency pulses) are a later Navy-and-NOAA file.
What is a pygmy blue whale?
A southern subspecies/form -- smaller, still EN, often confused in catch histories.
IUCN: Endangered
Anatomy overlay
Numbered teaching hotspots on the species still — not a clinical diagnosis.
- 1 Primary weapon or tool — The bill, teeth, trunk, pouch or talon that field guides name first -- and that trade or c
- 2 Energy store — Fat, cache, crop or bamboo hours that decide whether a season closes.
- 3 Natal or breeding site — A redd, eyrie, den, anemone or ice lair -- often a single-point risk (Izumi, Natron, Gir).
- 4 Sensory organ — Low-frequency sound that crosses basins. Eyes are secondary in that budget.
- 5 Human interface — Hunt, tourism, film or quota -- the surface where blue whale biology meets English-languag
Anatomy overlay
Four teaching regions on Blue whale. A schematic, not a dissection guide.
Every blue whale is a stack of tissues that must agree under season, prey and human pressure.
Meters below repeat the six atlas scores as gauges; they are relative marks, not laboratory certificates.
Systems
Support and integument
A rorqual with ventral pleats, a 3 m heart in the public myth (the real heart is smaller than the postcard), and baleen for krill. Size is a filter-feeding outcome.
Feeding apparatus
Lunge-feeding on krill swarms -- the most expensive gulp, paid by the densest food. Fasting between polar summer and low-latitude winter. The feeding kit sets the ecological-role score relative to the other 23 types.
Respiration and circulation
Gas exchange and blood flow are tuned to the blue whale energy budget -- dive, hover, sprint or bulk browse -- not to a generic vertebrate template.
Senses and neural control
Low-frequency sound that crosses basins. Eyes are secondary in that budget.
Reproduction and ontogeny
Replacement rate is the hidden resilience number. A 1966 lock on a emptied south, and ships on the healthier coasts. EN is still the species card.
Thermoregulation and salt/water
Climate and osmoregulation bound where a blue whale can close its daily budget. Field sites in the English-speaking world still measure that envelope first.
Relative meters
Hotspots
Primary weapon or tool
The bill, teeth, trunk, pouch or talon that field guides name first -- and that trade or conflict usually targets.
Energy store
Fat, cache, crop or bamboo hours that decide whether a season closes.
Natal or breeding site
A redd, eyrie, den, anemone or ice lair -- often a single-point risk (Izumi, Natron, Gir).
Sensory organ
Low-frequency sound that crosses basins. Eyes are secondary in that budget.
Human interface
Hunt, tourism, film or quota -- the surface where blue whale biology meets English-language law.
Tissues & materials
Keratin and integument
Feathers, fur, baleen or skin plates -- tissues, not metals. Moult and wear are the maintenance cycle.
Bone and cartilage
Load paths for stoop, lunge, knuckle-walk or hover. Marrow and pneumatic bone differ by family.
Muscle and tendon
The expensive tissue that speed and intelligence scores only hint at.
Fat, oil and glycogen
Stores that migration, fast and lactation spend. A market for those stores (oil, ivory, fin) is a historical threat.
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