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Animal Weight

How much does a Bryde’s whale weight?

It is hard to guess what a Bryde’s whale weights. But we have the answer:

An adult Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera edeni) on average weights 20000 kg (44092.4 lbs).

The Bryde’s whale is from the family Balaenopteridae (genus: Balaenoptera). They can live for up to 72 years. When reaching adult age, they grow up to 13.85 meter (45′ 6″).

As a reference: An average human weights in at 62 kg (137 lbs) and reaches an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″). Humans spend 280 days (40 weeks) in the womb of their mother and reach around 75 years of age.

The average adult weight of a Bryde's whale is 20000 kg (44092.4 lbs)

Bryde’s whale ( BRUU-dəz), or the Bryde’s whale complex, putatively comprises two species of rorqual and maybe three. The “complex” means the number and classification remains unclear because of a lack of definitive information and research. The common Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera brydei, Olsen, 1913) is a larger form that occurs worldwide in warm temperate and tropical waters, and the Sittang or Eden’s whale (B. edeni, Anderson, 1879) is a smaller form that may be restricted to the Indo-Pacific. And also, a smaller, coastal form of B. brydei is found off southern Africa, and perhaps another form in the Indo-Pacific differs in skull morphology, tentatively referred to as the Indo-Pacific Bryde’s whale. The recently described Omura’s whale (B. omurai, Wada et al. 2003), was formerly thought to be a pygmy form of Bryde’s, but is now recognized as a distinct species.B. brydei gets its specific and common name from Johan Bryde, Norwegian consul to South Africa, who helped establish the first modern whaling station in the country, while B. edeni gets its specific and common names from Sir Ashley Eden, former High Commissioner of Burma (Myanmar). Sittang whale refers to the type locality of the species. In Thailand, locals distinguished Sittang whales that were different from B.edeni, and it is unclear whether Sittang whales were applied for later-classified Omura’s whales by locals.

Animals of the same family as a Bryde’s whale

We found other animals of the Balaenopteridae family:

  • Humpback whale bringing 30000 kilos (66138.6 lbs) to the scale
  • Sei whale bringing 22103.13 kilos (48729 lbs) to the scale
  • Blue whale bringing 154160.65 kilos (339865.65 lbs) to the scale
  • Common minke whale bringing 5588.55 kilos (12320.63 lbs) to the scale
  • Fin whale bringing 47503 kilos (104726.06 lbs) to the scale

Animals with the same weight as a Bryde’s whale

As a comparison, here are some other animals that weight as much as the Balaenoptera edeni:

Animals with the same size as a Bryde’s whale

Not that size really matters, but it makes things comparable. So here are a couple of animals that are as big as Bryde’s whale:

Animals with the same life expectancy as a Bryde’s whale

Completely different animals, but becoming as old as a Bryde’s whale: