14 November: Great White Whale Day

 In 1851, one of the world's greatest novels, Moby Dick, was published, which is why today is Great White Whale Day. 10 things you may not know about whales:

1. There are over 80 different species of whale. They range in size from the blue whale, the largest animal known to have ever existed at 30 m (98 ft) and 180 tonnes (180 long tons; 200 short tons), to pygmy species such as the pygmy sperm whale at 3.5 m (11 ft). Technically, Dolphins and porpoises belong to a branch of the whale family although most people view them as something separate.
2. Whales are the Hippopotamus's closest living relatives.
3. The shape of a whale's spout can help identify which species it is.
4. Whales are born tail first, to minimise the risk of drowning.
5. Whale milk is so rich in fats that it is the consistency of toothpaste. The female feeds her young by squirting the milk into its mouth. A baby blue whale may drink over 100 gallons of milk a day.
6. Scientists have found that baleen whales possess an organ that no other animal on earth has - the size of a grapefruit and located on their chins. They don't know what this organ is for, but are speculating that it has something to do with filtering out the vast amounts of water (sometimes as much as their own body weight) that they take in while feeding.
7. Female humped back whales have best friends. They reunite with their friends each year, and feed side by side, just hanging out together.
8. Whales in captivity have been known to try and communicate with humans by imitating human speech, and wild whales take a great interest in music played underwater, sometimes even seeming to dance to it.
9. Whales have been known to adopt other creatures. For example, a pod of sperm whales were observed to have a deformed bottlenosed dolphin hanging out with them. It seems likely the dolphin was rejected by its own kind because it couldn't keep up with them, and latched on to the slower moving whales for social contact. Scientists aren't sure why the whales were so happy to let the dolphin join their group. Beluga whales have been known to carry planks and other flotsam around like surrogate calves.
10. When whales die, their massive bodies sink to the bottom of the sea, and become mini eco-systems for scavengers, Bacteria, crustaceans who live among the bones, and finally organisms that live off the nutrients produced by the breakdown of the carcass. Scientists have observed around 185 different species living off the body of a single whale, for several years.