19 reactions | Do you ever wonder what a blue whale sounds like?  The blue whale is one of the loudest animals on Earth. By some accounts, it can produce the loudest sustained sounds in the animal kingdom at 188 decibels. Hear—and feel—the booming call of blue whales in our state-of-the-art IMAX Theater with Blue Whales 3D! Get tickets at californiasciencecenter.org/bluewhales. | California Science Center | Facebook

Blue whale vocalizations are very low frequency sounds with some in the 15 Hz range. These tones characteristically travel long distances due to the high power, but also due to very long-wavelengths (over 300 feet for 15 Hz). This enables their songs to be heard thousands of miles from the source. We can assume that the projection distance is important (Nature can be extravagant, but she is never wasteful), but we can only speculate why they need to broadcast their songs across ocean basins. The