14 DAY TRIAL // Blue whales are the absolute largest animals in existence. They can grow to measure about 98 feet (30 meters) in length and tip the scale at 200 tons so, yes, they are pretty big.
With such a big body comes an equally big heart. How big? Well, check out the video below to see for yourselves. Fair warning: your mind will be blown.
As it turns out, a blue whale's heart is so gigantic it surely wouldn't fit in your bathtub at home. You might squeeze into a jacuzzi, but it would have to be a spacious one.
Wildlife researchers say the hearts of blue whales usually measure about 5 x 4 x 4 feet (1.5 x 1.2 x 1.2 meters) and weigh around 400 pounds (180 kilograms).
They typically pump around 220 liters of blood per beat. What with blue whales being ginormous, it takes a lot of blood to deliver oxygen and nutrients to all the cells in the body.
The blood vessels connecting the heart to the rest of the body are too pretty impressive. True, they aren't wide enough to swim through, as some say.
Nonetheless, there's no denying they look more like pipes than proper blood vessels, at least when compared to the veins and arteries in our body.
In the past, blue whales were hunted almost to extinction. They are now protected by law and a 2002 report puts their population at around 5,000 to 12,000. They are listed as an endangered species.
