The Numbers First
The only intact blue whale heart ever preserved and studied in detail came from a specimen that washed ashore in Newfoundland in 2014. Scientists at the Royal Ontario Museum spent months preparing it. The result: a heart roughly 180 centimetres long, 150 centimetres wide, and weighing approximately 180 kilograms. Set it on the ground and it stands about as tall as a ten-year-old child. The aorta, the main vessel leaving the heart, has an internal diameter wide enough for a small adult to crawl through on hands and knees.
