sed area just in front
of the blowholes towards but not quite reaching the tip of the snout.

The dorsal fin is extremely small [to only 13 inches (33 cm)] and
variable in shape from nearly triangular to moderately falcate. In all
cases, it is located so far back on the animal's tail stock that it is
seldom visible until the animal is about to begin a dive.

Blue whales are light bluish gray overall, mottled with gray or grayish
white. Some animals may have yellowish or mustard coloration, primarily
on the belly, the result of the accumulation of diatoms during long
stays in the cooler waters to the north. The undersides of the flippers
are light grayish blue to white.

The baleen plates are all black.

Natural History Notes

The blow or "spout" is tall, to perhaps 30 feet (9.1 m), slender,
vertical, and not bushy, as is the blow of humpback whales, for
instance.

Although the blowing and diving patterns of blue whales may vary,
depending on the speed of movement and the activity of the whale when it
is encountered, they may be generally described as follows: If the
animal is moving slowly, the blowhole and part of the head may still be
visible when the dorsal fin breaks the surface, and the animal may
settle quietly into the water without exposing the last portion of the
tail stock or the tail flukes. If the animal is moving more quickly,
however, or is about to begin a long dive, the blowhole disappears below
the surface, a broad expanse of the back is exposed and disappears, and
the dorsal fin emerges briefly just before the animal lifts its tail
stock and flukes slightly above the surface before slipping out of
sight.

In this species it can be generally stated that the maximum height of
back in the area of the dorsal fin which is exposed above the surface as
the animal sounds is approximately four times the height of the dorsal
fin itself. The exposure of the tail flukes is unlike that of the
humpback whale (Fig. 39), the right whale (Fig. 50), or the sperm whale
(Fig. 57) in that when beginning a long dive all these other species
raise the flukes high out of the water and usually descend at a steep
angle. Blue whales lift the flukes only slightly, if at all.

Blue whales are relatively shallow feeders, feeding as they do almost
exclusively on "krill" (small shrimplike crustaceans), most of which are
distributed in the surface 330 feet (100 m). Blue whales usually occur
singly or in pairs.

May Be C