Short answer: nobody has published a reliable measurement of a blue whale’s tongue length, so the “12 feet” and “18 feet” figures that circulate online aren’t backed by data. What we do have is an estimate of its weight: a blue whale’s tongue is often put at around 2.7 tonnes (about 6,000 pounds), roughly as heavy as an elephant. Its most amazing trick isn’t its size, though. Every time the whale feeds, the tongue turns inside out.
How long is a blue whale’s tongue?
It’s a fair question for the largest animal ever known, which grows up to about 30 metres (almost 100 feet) long. But a blue whale’s tongue isn’t a firm, fixed shape like ours. It is soft, loose and floppy, and it changes shape dramatically while the whale eats. That makes “length” hard to pin down, and no scientific study has published a trustworthy number. If you see a precise figure, treat it as a guess.
How much does a blue whale’s tongue weigh?
Estimates put a blue whale’s tongue at about 2.7 tonnes. That is heavier than most cars and tens of thousands of times heavier than a human tongue. Because the blue whale is the biggest animal on Earth, its tongue is generally thought to be the heaviest of any animal.
How a blue whale uses its tongue to eat
Blue whales eat almost nothing but krill, small shrimp-like animals, and they catch them with a move called lunge feeding:
- Speed up. The whale charges at a dense swarm of krill.
- Open wide. It drops its lower jaw open to a huge angle.
- Balloon out. The pleated skin of its throat stretches like an accordion, and the loose tongue turns inside out to line the enormous pouch that forms. In one gulp the whale can take in a volume of water larger than its own body.
- Squeeze and filter. The whale closes its mouth, then its throat muscles and tongue push the water out through the comb-like baleen plates hanging from its upper jaw. The water escapes, the krill stay behind, and the whale swallows its catch.
A blue whale repeats this over and over, eating several tonnes of krill a day during the feeding season.
The tongue with stretchy nerves
Stretching a mouth and tongue that much would snap ordinary nerves. In 2015, scientists studying fin whales, the blue whale’s close cousins, found that the nerves in the tongue and floor of the mouth are folded up like a concertina. When the mouth balloons open, the nerves unfold and can stretch to more than twice their resting length, then fold back again. It’s one of the reasons this extreme way of feeding works at all.
Blue whale tongue myths
- Myth: blue whales use their tongues to talk to each other. Fact: their famously deep calls are made by moving air through the larynx, not with the tongue.
- Myth: blue whales swallow whole schools of fish. Fact: they feed almost entirely on krill, which are far smaller than fish.
- Myth: there are records of blue whale tongues measured in aquariums. Fact: no blue whale has ever been kept in captivity. They are far too big.
Blue whale tongue: quick facts
- Estimated weight: about 2.7 tonnes, as heavy as an elephant
- Length: no reliable published measurement
- Main job: turns inside out to line the throat pouch, then helps push water out through the baleen
- Diet it helps catch: krill, several tonnes a day in the feeding season
- Whale size: up to about 30 m (98 ft) long
- Conservation status: Endangered
FAQ
Does the blue whale have the biggest tongue in the world?
By weight, almost certainly. The blue whale is the largest animal ever known, and its tongue is estimated at around 2.7 tonnes.
Could a blue whale swallow a person?
No. Its mouth is huge, but it is built to filter tiny krill, and its throat is far too narrow to swallow something the size of a human.
What eats blue whales?
Adults have very few natural predators, but orcas sometimes attack them. Read more in what eats a blue whale.
Sources
- NOAA Fisheries, Blue Whale species profile (size, diet, conservation status).
- Goldbogen, J.A. et al. (2011). Mechanics, hydrodynamics and energetics of blue whale lunge feeding: efficiency dependence on krill density. Journal of Experimental Biology.
- Vogl, A.W. et al. (2015). Stretchy nerves are an essential component of the extreme feeding mechanism of rorqual whales. Current Biology.
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