Huge sea creature — the world’s largest — stuns California onlookers in early sighting

Whale watchers off Laguna Beach, California, received an unexpected treat when they spotted the season’s first blue whale.

The boat captain for Dana Wharf Sportfishing and Whale Watching spotted a 60-foot-long male blue whale about 6 miles from shore on April 28.

“We found our first Blue Whale of the season,” the organization wrote in a post on Facebook.

According to staff, this is an early sighting. Last year, the first blue whale was seen on May 7.

Blue whales are the largest creatures on Earth, weighing up to 330,000 pounds and growing to 110 feet long, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That is roughly the length of a 10-story building.

Blue whales, in fact, are the largest animals ever to roam our planet, BBC Earth says. They are larger than any dinosaur or mammoth ever was, according to experts.

Given their magnitude, they eat 20 million to 50 million calories per day, roughly the equivalent of 80,000 Big Macs, according to NPR. Although, instead of Big Macs, blue whales primarily eat huge amounts of krill.

And that is exactly what the whale was doing when the watchers spotted him.

“We were watching this whale feeding for several cycles when all of a sudden it began porpoising,” the organization said.

Mid-meal, the whale began lunging in the air.

For these whale enthusiasts, it was quite a morning.

“It was an incredible day out on the water with you today! I loved every minute of it,” one commenter said.

This story was originally published May 1, 2024 at 10:37 AM with the headline "Huge sea creature — the world’s largest — stuns California onlookers in early sighting."