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The most inhospitable element of the oceans is the extreme cold. Little sunlight penetrates the water's surface, and the temperature can drop below freezing even at relatively shallow depths. To deal with this biting cold, whales have developed a thick layer of blubber all around their bodies.

Blubber, a layer of stored-up fat beneath the skin and above the muscles, acts as a blanket to hold in the whale's body heat. In colder seasons, this insulating layer is the only thing keeping whales from freezing to death. Whales also use their blubber to store up energy for future use. Some species will feed heavily for half the year, when food is plentiful, and fast the rest of the year, living off their built-up blubber layer.

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14y ago

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