How much does a blue whale's tongue weigh?

A blue whale’s tongue weighs about 2.7 metric tons.

That estimate is roughly comparable to the weight of a small car, illustrating the extraordinary scale of the blue whale, the largest known animal ever to have lived. The tongue is a major part of the whale’s feeding apparatus, working with the mouth, throat pouch, and baleen to process enormous gulps of seawater.

Blue whales are filter feeders. During lunge feeding, a whale accelerates toward a dense patch of krill and expands its pleated throat pouch, temporarily holding a huge volume of water and prey. It then pushes the water back out through its baleen plates, while the krill remain trapped and are swallowed.

The tongue figure is an approximate biological estimate rather than a fixed measurement: individual size, sex, age, and the condition of a specimen can affect reported weights. The tongue is also not the blue whale’s heaviest organ. Its heart can weigh several hundred kilograms, while the entire animal may weigh well over 100 metric tons. Another common misconception is that blue whales eat fish; their principal food is krill.