Beluga Whales # 11 --Jo Baker-

  I have always been an animal person. I was researching aquatic organisms and found I have an interest in a particular one. I have an interest in Beluga whales, or Delphinapterus Leucas as their called in scientific terms. I thought since I think they're interesting maybe others will to. So I decided to list a lot of important facts about them that I have learned.

• Beluga whales are known for their white color. 
•  The freezing waters of the subarctic and the arctic is where the beluga whale subsides. 
• Beluga whales are very different from other species of whales.beluga whales are able to move their head up, down, side to side and even make facial expressions. They can do this because beluga whales have bones in their neck that aren't merged together like other whales. 
• Life in the cold arctic waters is actually bearable to these whales due to their five inch thick layer of whale blubber and a dorsal ridge that helps them find their way through the cold and ice. 
• They find food by looking for fish and other organisms in the water column and on the seafloor.
• Beluga whales are very good swimmers. Beluga whales can stay under water for up to twenty five minutes and go as deep as 800 meters. 
• It can take up to eight years before beluga whales turn all the way white. They are born dark grey. 
• The word "Beluga" originally came from the word “bielo” which in Russian means white. 
• Whales love to be around other whales, they're very social. They sometimes travel in huge groups called pods. These pods can consist of just a few whales or a hundred whales. 
• Squeaks, clicks, chirps, squeals, moos, and whistles and other sounds are how whales communicate under water, find their way, and hunt food. They love to be vocal, they are even known as the canaries of the sea.
• Although they make a lot of sounds, many of them humans can not hear because they are at very low frequencies. 
• Beluga whales typically live from thirty five to fifty years. 
• When waters in the arctic freeze over Beluga whales travel south to the subarctic and travel back north when the ice breaks apart in the spring.
•  Off Russia, Canada, Greenland, Norway, and the United States is where beluga whales can be found. 

• Beluga whales eat many, many things, such as : octopi and mussels, crabs, snails, and fish like char, smelt, salmon, arctic cod and herring.
• Narwhals are the most closely related whale to the beluga whale.  

    I hope somebody else finds these creatures as interesting as I do. I also hope some of these facts helped give others a better understanding of this creature.  And I hope you have a better understanding of a lot of the reasons why these whales are so peculiar and different from your everyday whale. Beluga whales are not the only aquatic animal I'm interested in but they are probably the biggest. I hope this blog let people learn some facts that they maybe didn't know.