Blue whale heart size comparison

SCIENCE

You’ve probably heard claims that a blue whale’s heart is the size of a car, and that people could swim through their aortas.

Well . . . (BBC)

Size yourself up to a blue whale with our activity.

Teachers, scroll down for a short list of key resources in our Teachers’ Toolkit.

Discussion Ideas

• The 400-pound heart of a 40,000-pound animal is still pretty big!

  Blue whale heart weight in tons

  (Even though the heart is only about 1% of the whale’s body weight, it’s still the biggest on the planet.) How big is the heart of the world’s largest terrestrial (land-loving) creature? How big is your own heart? How does it compare to the size of a blue whale’s heart?

  • African elephants are the largest terrestrial creatures on Earth. Their round-shaped hearts weigh about 30 pounds.

    Blue whale heart size

  • Blue whale heart facts
  • Blue whale heart rate
  • Blue whale heart weight in tons
  • Blue whale weight
  • A blue whale’s heart weighs about 14 times as much as an elephant’s heart.
  • The heart makes up about 5% of an elephant’s weight.
  • A human heart weighs about 10 ounces. There are 16 ounces in a pound.

    Do the math to compare its size to a whale heart—don’t worry, it isn’t hard:

    • 16 ounces in a pound, so 400 pou
      how big is a blue whale heart compared to human
      how tall is a blue whales heart