Slow-Whale
Anatomy
Slow-whales have a long, grey, barrel shaped body. It is much rounder than other cetaceans on the planet, and are slower because of it. They have small heads, with square shaped mouths. These mouths have the thickest skin on their entire body, which helps them consume more plants that would otherwise be able to inject venom into the animal. They have long, thin whiskers around their lips which help detect objects they float into when sleeping.
The small fins on the sides of their tubby bodies guide them through the cold waters, ideal when they have no need to swim at high speeds. Their large paddle tails are the only parts of their body that move at considerable speed. Beating at about 20 flaps per minute, their tails are what push them forwards.
Reproduction & Growth
To put it bluntly, slow-whales are terrible parents. After mating, which takes several hours due to both partner's desire to not move, the female will be impregnated for 2 years. Slow-whales give birth tail-first, as they are air-breathing, and if they were to give birth head-first then the baby would drown.
The baby slow-whales have the innate instinct to swim to the surface, where they will spend the first 5 weeks of their lives enduring harsh rain and snowfall, all while they munch on surface-growing algae and plants. During this time, parents completely abandon their children and go on to swim slowly around the frozen underwater mountains, munching on toxic plants that nothing else can eat.
I love whales so much. Are the slow whales amphibious? Or are they grazing the sea bottom/surface?
Solaris -— a sapphic space opera
Creator of World of Worlds | Camp Chill | Comment Carolers
They aren't too amphibious, as they aren't suited for land, babies just float on the surface xD They start out as surface grazers, and as adults they eat closer to the sea floor!