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Animal Age

How old does a Blainville’s beaked whale get? (age expectancy)

What is the maximal age a Blainville’s beaked whale reaches?

An adult Blainville’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) usually gets as old as 27 years.

When born, they weight 2 grams (0 lbs) and measure 8.9 cm (0′ 4″). They are a member of the Ziphiidae family (genus: Mesoplodon). Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 4.59 meter (15′ 1″).

As a reference: Usually, humans get as old as 100 years, with the average being around 75 years. After being carried in the belly of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks), they grow to an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) and weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual.

A Blainville's beaked whale gets as old as 27 years

Blainville’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris), or the dense-beaked whale, is the widest ranging mesoplodont whale and perhaps the most documented. The French zoologist Henri de Blainville first described the species in 1817 from a small piece of jaw — the heaviest bone he had ever come across — which resulted in the name densirostris (Latin for “dense beak”). Off the northeastern Bahamas, the animals are particularly well documented, and a photo identification project started sometime after 2002.

Animals of the same family as a Blainville’s beaked whale

Not really brothers and sisters, but from the same biological family (Ziphiidae):

Animals that reach the same age as Blainville’s beaked whale

With an average age of 27 years, Blainville’s beaked whale are in good companionship of the following animals:

Weighting as much as Blainville’s beaked whale

A fully grown Blainville’s beaked whale reaches around 2300 kg (5070.63 lbs). So do these animals:

Animals as big as a Blainville’s beaked whale

Those animals grow as big as a Blainville’s beaked whale: