Species: Megaptera novaeangliae

Humpback Whale
Species

    This is a mostly black or gray baleen whale with very long (up to one-third of body length) flippers that often are white or partly white. In front of the paired nostrils the head is flat and covered with knobs. The rear edge of the flippers and fluke is scalloped. The dorsal fin is variable but often has a hump or step along the front edge. The throat has about 14-35 longitudinal grooves. The baleen generally is all black, up to 70 cm long. Maximum length is around 52 feet (16 meters). The blow is bushy and V-shaped. Humpbacks often raise the tail above the water when starting a deep dive. Source: Leatherwood and Reeves (1983).

    Articles:

    Humpback whales find their voice

    The Salish Sea may be a giant ‘practice room’ for humpback whales as they get ready to sing in their winter breeding grounds in Hawaii and Mexico. A network of hydrophones is recording it all.

    A humpback whale seen breaching with more than half of its body out of the water. Land with bare cliff and trees in the background.
    Declines in marine birds trouble scientists

    Why did all the grebes leave? Where did they go? And what does their disappearance say about the health of the Salish Sea? Seasonal declines among some regional bird species could hold important clues to the overall health of the ecosystem.

    Western grebe. Public Pier, Blaine, WA. Photo: Andrew Reding https://www.flickr.com/photos/seaotter/10298390254
    Acoustic quality of critical habitats for three threatened whale populations

    A 2013 article in the journal Animal Conservation compares the effects of increasing anthropogenic noise to habitat loss for endangered fin, humpback and killer whales in the Salish Sea.

    Southern Resident Killer Whales in Puget Sound. Photo courtesy of NOAA
    Kingdom
    Animalia
    Phylum
    Craniata
    Class

    Mammalia

    Order

    Cetacea

    Family

    Balaenopteridae

    Genus

    Megaptera

    Classification
    Other Global Common Names
    Rorcual Jorobado - rorqual à bosse
    Informal Taxonomy
    <p>Animals, Vertebrates - Mammals - Whales and Dolphins</p>
    Formal Taxonomy
    Animalia - Craniata - Mammalia - Cetacea - Balaenopteridae - Megaptera - MtDNA data indicate that several distinctive stocks exist in the Southern Hemisphere, with a low level of gene flow among them; also, shared identical nucleotypes occur in the Northern and Southern hemispheres (Baker et al. 1998).

    This is a mostly black or gray baleen whale with very long (up to one-third of body length) flippers that often are white or partly white. In front of the paired nostrils the head is flat and covered with knobs. The rear edge of the flippers and fluke is scalloped. The dorsal fin is variable but often has a hump or step along the front edge. The throat has about 14-35 longitudinal grooves. The baleen generally is all black, up to 70 cm long. Maximum length is around 52 feet (16 meters). The blow is bushy and V-shaped. Humpbacks often raise the tail above the water when starting a deep dive. Source: Leatherwood and Reeves (1983).

    Short General Description
    A large baleen whale.
    Habitat Type Description
    Marine
    Migration
    <p>false - false - true - Resightings of photoidentified individuals indicate that individuals may winter in widely separated areas in different years; at least some individuals may occupy widely separated areas in a single spring-summer season (e.g., Hawaii and Mexico, Hawaii and Japan, Japan and British Columbia) (see Darling and Mori 1993; Marine Mammal Sci. 12:281-287, [1996]; Salden et al. 1999). The fastest documented migration from southeastern Alaska to Hawaii took 39 days (Marine Mammal Sci. 12:457-464).</p>
    Non-migrant
    false
    Locally Migrant
    false
    Food Comments
    This species is primarily dependent upon schooling fishes and krill (essentially krill only in the Southern Hemisphere). Feeding occurs singly or in groups, at the surface or while submerged, mainly in high latitudes, though stranded individuals in Virginia and Georgia had eaten sciaenid fishes (Laerm et al. 19970. <br><br>Humpback whales employ a wide variety of foraging methods, including cooperative feeding on prey enclosed in "nets" of exhaled air bubbles.
    Reproduction Comments
    In the western North Atlantic, young are born from December or January through March. Gestation lasts 11-12 months. Most adult females bear a calf every 2-3 years (sometimes 1 or 4 years). Young are weaned in 5-12 months. Twelve females that were monitored since first being observed as calves produced their first calves at ages of 5-7 years (Can. J. Zool. 70:1470). In Alaska, the age of first calving is 8-16 years (average 11.8 years).
    Ecology Comments
    Humpback whales travel singly, in pairs or trios, or in groups of usually about 10-15. They may form stable feeding groups that stay together throughout the summer and that reform in subsequent summers. <br><br>This species sometimes has succumbed to local die-offs off the northeastern United States, due apparently to ingestion of prey containing red tide toxins (IUCN 1991).
    Length
    1300
    Weight
    3.0E7
    NatureServe Global Status Rank
    G4
    Global Status Last Reviewed
    2008-11-26
    Global Status Last Changed
    2008-11-26
    Conservation Status Map
    <img src="http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/GetMapGif?CA.BC=S3&CA.LB=SNR&CA.NB=S3&CA.NF=SNR&CA.NS=S3&CA.PE=SNR&CA.QC=S4&US.AK=S3&US.CA=SNR&US.DE=__&US.FL=SNR&US.GA=__&US.HI=SNR&US.ME=SNR&US.MD=__&US.MA=S2&US.NJ=S1&US.NY=__&US.NC=__&US.OR=__&US.RI=__&US.SC=S1&US.TX=SNR&US.VA=__&US.WA=__" alt="Conservation Status Map" style="width: 475px; height: auto;" />
    Global Range
    H - >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles) - H - Range encompasses the world's oceans from the subtropics to high latitudes. All subpopulations (except the one in the Arabian Sea) migrate between mating and calving grounds in tropical/subtropical waters, usually near continental coastlines or island groups, and productive colder waters in temperate and high latitudes (Reilly et al. 2008).
    Global Range Code
    H
    Global Range Description
    >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)
    ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.105599