Tour Guide, Colombo, Sri Lanka
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Whale Watching
The ever-smiling, mischievous dolphins will put on a show while some of the oldest and the largest sea creatures, the humpback and the blue whales, will nonchalantly glide past you when you embark on a whale/ dolphin watching excursion off the Southern, Eastern or the Western coast of Sri Lanka. The ideal locations for whale watching would be Dondra Point (accessible from Galle, Hikkaduwa and Mirissa) and Trincomalee while the sea off Kalpitiya teems with an abundance of dolphins.
Sri Lanka Coast Guards Assures a Safer Season of Whale Watching at Mirissa.
With the whale watching season in Mirissa being in full swing and many local and foreign tourists gathering to the Mirissa harbour, The Sri Lanka Coast Guards had increased their vigilance in monitoring the implementation of Sea Mammals Observation, Regulation and Control Regulations.
To ensure that the Regulations are adhered to by boat operators and tourists engaged in whale watching, the members of the Rohana Coast Guard base had been observing whale and dolphin watching activities in Mirissa since last year. The coast guards also make sure that the boat operators; crew and the tourists abide the safety precautions and regulations before and during their tour of observation.
Whales and Dolphins
Whales: Blue Whale, Killer Whale, Humpback Whale, Minke Whale, Sperm Whale, Fin Whale
The world's largest blue whale colony is in Sri Lanka. Hundreds of blue whales are gathering in the Indian Ocean. They feed on tiny planktonic crustaceans krill. These foods are available in large quantities in the Indian Ocean. The whales are marine mammals of the order cetacean having a streamlined body and horizontal tail and breathing air through a blowhole on the head. The weight of the matured blue whale is about 200 tongs. The length is around 27-30 meters. The Blue whale has four-chambered heart resemble a Volkswagen bug car; a human can crawl through the main artery. Blue whales feed on 03 or 04 tons of krill a day.
Blue Whale
The whale is the largest and most majestic animal to ever inhabit our planet. The blue whale is enormous and is named after the blue-grey colour of its skin. It is the largest animal ever to be recorded on earth. They can grow to 100 feet long and weigh up to 150 tones. Which is a heavy as a Boeing Jet plus their heart is the size of a small car. Their dorsal fins are extremely small and their pectoral flippers long and thing. A blue whale's blowhole is capable of shooting water up to at least 30 feet when it surfaced for air. Another blue whale fact it has been speculated that this spices may also use sounds to communicate with other whales and to find a mate.
The blue whales feed through a comb-like strainer of some 400 plates with bristles to capture the tiny morsels of food as the whale swims in order to get enough to eat; a blue whale can expand its throat to take in as much as 50 tones of water in one gulp.
Killer Whale
The killer whale is the world's biggest dolphin. The large male killer whale can eat up to 220 pounds(100kg) of a food a day. The killer whales hunt fish squid birds stingrays sea otters and even other whales. Killer whales have 40 to 56 interlocking teeth, each one around three inches long; they are conical shaped and used for ripping and tearing. But not chewing or eat their food in chunks or entirely whole. They grow an average of 19 feet (5.8 meters) in length. Though specimens exceeding 30 feet (9 meters) and weighing up to 22000 pounds (10000 kilograms) have been recorded. Killer whales can swim at speed of up to 35 miles per hour (56 kilometres per hour). The killer whale can live for an average of 50 to 80 year.
Humpback Whale
The humpback whale can be distinguished by its large size, knobbly head and 5 meter long flippers. The bumps found on the head are called tubercles and each one contains single hair follicle which may be used in a sensory capacity. Much like cat's whiskers.
The wavy-edged flukes are raised during dives. Male humpbacks sing the longest most complex songs in the animal kingdom; the songs consist is of a complex series of whistles. Squeals and deep sonorous calls divided into verses and sung in a specific order. Which may last for as long as half an hour. Humpback whales make long journeys each population of humpbacks has its own migration routes.
Minke Whale
Minke whales are the smallest and most abundant of the rorqual whales. They have a sharply pointed snout straight mouth line and long ridge alone the head with two blowholes.
They have hundreds of baleen plates 20 to 30 CM long growing from their jaws from their throat and ending just past their flippers.
Sperm Whale
Sperm whales are easily recognized by their massive heads are prominent rounded foreheads. They have the largest brain of any creature known to have lived on earth. Their hands also hold large quantities of a substance called spermaceti; one common theory is that the fluids which harden to wax when cold helps the whales alter its buoyancy, so it can dive deep and rise again. Sperm whales are known to dive as deep as 3280 feet (1000 meters) in search of squid to eat. These giant mammals must hold their breath for up to 50 minutes on such dives.
Fin Whale
The fin whale is the world's second-largest animal after the blue whales. Growing up to 27 meters long and weighing as much as 120 tones. The upper half of the body is dark grey or brownish. While the belly is white. They can dive to a depth of 230 meters and make low-frequency noise (infrasound) which can be loud as 188 decibels. These sounds cannot be heard humans but can be detected by other fin whales up to 850 km away.
Dolphin: Spinner dolphin, Bottle-nose dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
This is a small and slender dolphin and the size of them will vary based on where they reside. The common colouration of them is dark grey on the back and lighter grey on the sides. They are white or light grey on the belly. They may have a very dark grey stripe that runs from the eye to the flipper. The dorsal fin that is triangular shaped.
Bottle-nose Dolphin
Bottle-nose dolphins are actually small whales and belonging to the group known as tooth head whales. They are air-breathing mammals even though they have adapted to the marine environment. They still must come to the surface to breathe through the blowhole on top of their heads. Bottle-nose dolphins are common in temperate and tropical seas all over the world. There are an inshore species that is often seen along the coast. Bottle-nose dolphins eat around 15 kilograms of food a day consisting of a wide variety of fish such as squid and octopuses. They will reach 2-4 meters and weigh between 150-650 kilograms. Bottle-nose dolphin can live to over 30 years of age.