You're right Stuart- 2nd biggest animal after blue whale:
The
fin whale (
Balaenoptera physalus), also called the
finback whale,
razorback, or
common rorqual, is a marine
mammal belonging to the suborder of
baleen whales. It is the second largest whale and the second largest living
animal after the
blue whale,
[3] growing to nearly 27
meters (88
ft) long.
[3]
Long and slender, the fin whale's body is brownish-grey with a paler underside. There are at least two distinct subspecies: the Northern fin whale of the North Atlantic, and the larger Antarctic fin whale of the
Southern Ocean. It is found in all the world's major oceans, from
polar to
tropical waters. It is absent only from waters close to the
ice pack at both the
north and
south poles and relatively small areas of water away from the open ocean. The highest population density occurs in
temperate and cool waters.
[4] Its food consists of small
schooling fish,
squid, and
crustaceans including
mysids and
krill.
Like all other large whales, the fin whale was heavily hunted during the twentieth century and is an
endangered species. Almost 750,000 fin whales were taken from the Southern Hemisphere alone between 1904 and 1979
[5] and less than 3,000 currently remain in that region.
[6] The
International Whaling Commission (IWC) has issued a moratorium on commercial hunting of this whale,
[7] although
Iceland and
Japan have resumed hunting: in 2009, Iceland took 125 fin whales during its whaling season, and Japan took 1 fin whale in its 2008-2009 Antarctic season.
[8][9] The species is also hunted by
Greenlanders under the Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling provisions of the IWC. Collisions with ships and noise from human activity also significantly threaten recovery