Big Wing Of New England
Big Wing Of New England
The Humpback Whale
2. They’re warm blooded, give birth to live humpback whales, and feed their babies using mother’s milk. They breathe using lungs. They have to come to the surface to breathe. They also have small hairs on their body which is part of being a mammal.
3. The humpback whale helps other humpback whales. If a shark is trying to get the mother’s calf, other humpback whales help the mother by scaring away the shark. If a humpback is trying to catch food, other humpback whales join in and make a “net”.
4. Humpback whales can blend into the sand on the ocean floor.
5. Humpback whales can dive down five hundred to seven hundred feet and stay under there for up to 30 minutes.
6. No two humpbacks have the same tail. The two sides of the tail are called Flukes.
7. The bodies of humpback whales are streamlined, or torpedo-shaped, to help them glide smoothly and easily through the water.
8. Humpback whales are black on the dorsal, or upper side, and mottled white and black on the ventral, or underside.
9. The average length of a humpback whale is 45 feet, and average weight is approximately 90,000 pounds (45 tons).
10. A humpback whale’s skin feels like smooth, wet rubber. The outer layer of skin actually absorbs water, which helps the whale move smoothly through the ocean.
11. Humpback whales have a thick layer of fat, called blubber.
12. Blubber helps whales stay warm in Alaska’s cold waters. It also makes whales buoyant, which helps them to float and not sink in the water.
13. Blubber is where whales store food to give them energy when they migrate to Hawaii where no food is available.
15. Baleen whales do not have teeth. They have baleen plates hanging down from both sides of their long upper jaws.
16. Humpback whales use baleen to feed. They gulp in large amounts of water, and use baleen to filter out small prey, such as krill and small fish.
17. Baleen plates overlap, and the lower edges are frayed (like frilly plastic hair). This helps the whale trap large amounts of prey.
18. Humpback whales have between 270 and 400 pairs of baleen plates. Each baleen plate is approximately 2-3 feet long.
19. Baleen is made out of a strong and flexible material called keratin. This is the same material our fingernails are made of.
20. Humpback whales have the longest pectoral fins of all whales. They are 15 feet long, which is 1/3 of their whole body length.
21. Pectoral fins are mostly white underneath, with bumps along the front edge. Pectoral fins are also called flippers.
22. Humpback whales use their paddle-shaped pectoral fins for steering and stopping in the water while swimming.
23. They can turn very quickly with their long pectoral fins.
24. The humpback’s scientific name, Megaptera, means Big Wings, named so because of their really long pectoral fins.
25. The humpback whale’s dorsal fin is located about 2/3 of the way down its back.
26. It is pointed and approximately 12 inches tall, which is very small compared to the size of the whale’s body.
27. The dorsal fin is used for balance in the water. It helps the whales to stay upright as they swim through the ocean.
28. Scientists take pictures of dorsal fins to help identify whales. The dorsal fin of each whale has different shapes, color patterns, and scar markings.
29. Flukes are the whale’s tail. Each side of the tail is called a fluke.
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31. Whales move their powerful flukes up and down to propel themselves through the water. Humpbacks can swim up to 20 mph, but usually swim a lot slower (between 8–13 mph).
32. Flukes do not have bones. They are made of muscle and other tissues.
33. Each humpback whale has different flukes, just like people all have different fingerprints. Researchers look at the patterns on the underside of flukes to name and study individual whales.
34. The peduncle muscle is the last third of the whale’s body, located between the dorsal fin and the flukes.
35. This powerful muscle is used to move the tail up and down for swimming.
36. A humpback whale arches its peduncle when getting ready to dive down. This looks like a hump on the back of the whale, which is how the humpback whale got its common name.
37. The peduncle muscle is the strongest muscle in the entire animal kingdom.
38. The large upper jaw or snout of the whale is called the rostrum.
39. It is fat, and tapers to a point. This makes the shape of the head streamlined to help the whale move easily through the water.
40. The rostrum is bumpy and often has barnacles attached to it.
41. Humpback whales do not have a neck.
42. Tubercles are golf ball-sized bumps on a humpback whale’s upper and lower jaws.
43. Each tubercle has a half-inch long hair, called a vibrissa.
44. Scientists are not sure why humpbacks have tubercles, but think they are used to sense temperature and vibrations in the water.
45. Humpbacks are the only whales with tubercles.
46. Ventral pleats are long grooves on the underside of the whale’s throat that run from the chin all the way to the navel.
47. Ventral pleats allow the whale to expand its mouth three times its normal size during feeding. This helps the whale to capture large amounts of food in one giant gulp.
48. Humpback whales have 12-30 ventral pleats.
49. Male humpback whales gulp in water to expand their ventral pleats. This makes them look larger and more impressive when competing with other males in the breeding grounds.
50. Blowholes are the whale’s nostrils. They are located on top of the whale’s head near the center.
51. Whales use blowholes to breathe air at the surface of the water.
52. Baleen whales have two blowholes. Whales and dolphins with teeth instead of baleen only have one blowhole.
53. When a whale comes to the surface to breathe, it opens its blowholes, exhales to clear out any leftover water, inhales a large breath of air, then snaps the blowholes closed tightly before diving under again.
54. The raised area in front of the blowholes is called a splashguard. The splashguard prevents water from pouring into the blowholes when the whale breathes.
55. Humpback whales exhale at a speed of 300 miles per hour. Air is forced from the blowholes so fast, that it creates a fountain of mist up to 15 feet high. The fountain of mist is called a blow or spout.
56. A humpback whale’s eyes are located on either side of the head, just above the end of the mouth line.
57. The eyes are about the size of a large orange and bulge out from the whale’s head. This helps the whale to see in all directions without moving its head.
58. Humpback whales can see above the surface of the water as well as they can underwater, approximately 400 feet.
59. Special glands produce a thin layer of fat to cover the eye to protect it from saltwater.
60. Humpback whales have brown eyes with a kidney-shaped pupil.
61. A humpback’s ears are located just behind and below its eyes.
62. The ears do not stick out; they are internal (on the inside of the whale). This helps to keep the whale’s body streamlined to move easily through the water.
63. The opening to the ear is a very small slit, about a half-inch long. The ear slit is small to help keep water from pouring into the ear.
64. Humpback whales depend on their excellent hearing to find food, avoid danger, and locate other whales and objects in the water.
65. Scientists estimate how old a humpback whale is by looking at its earwax. They remove the plug of earwax and count the layers of wax. The layer built up while the whale is in Alaska (feeding grounds) is darker than the layer that builds up when the whale is in Hawaii (breeding grounds). So scientists can count how many years the whale migrated from Alaska to Hawaii to figure out the age of the whale.
66. Humpback whales are found throughout the world’s oceans. The Humpback’s Latin name is “Megaptera novaeangliae”; megaptera means “huge wings”
67. A Humpback’s flippers are the largest of any whale, up to one-third the length of its body.
68. The blubber of a Humpback is the thickest of all whales.
69. A Humpback whale has approximately 330 pairs of baleen plates instead of teeth hanging from its jaw
70. Humpback whales’ very small eyes help them withstand the pressure of a deep sea dive
71. Humpback whales sometimes work together to catch prey by creating “bubble nets” or “bubble clouds” to trap small fish.
72. The whales dive beneath the water and then swim back toward the surface in a circular pattern. As they rise, they make bubbles that form a ring on the surface of the water. The small fish are caught inside the ring, and the humpbacks gulp them. A “bubble cloud” is a large burst of bubbles without open space in the middle.
73. Humpback whales are active and acrobatic. They can throw themselves completely out of the water, during an activity called breaching. They are also seen swimming on their backs with both flippers in the air.
74. Other behaviors that humpback whales perform in the wild are “tail lobbing” and “flipper slapping.” When a humpback whale tail lobs, it raises its huge fluke out of the water and slaps it on the surface. During flipper slapping, they use their flippers to slap the water instead of their tails. No one knows exactly why humpback whales perform these actions, but it is thought that it may have something to do with communication. The tail lobs and flipper slaps can be heard for a long distance underwater.
75. Humpback whales produce the most diverse range of sounds known for any whale and some of the longest and most varied sounds of any animal in the world. Their sounds include a variety of moans, grunts and shrieks produced either by lone individuals or within social groups. Many of these sounds are low in frequency (as low as 20 Hz), like those of most other large whales, but some sounds can reach 10,000 Hz (10 kHz). Humpbacks produce sounds in at least three situations.
76. Lone male humpbacks sing complicated sequences of “themes” that may last 10-20 or more minutes and are repeated for hours on end. Interestingly, the songs change over time and all the males in each population tend to sing slightly different types of the same general song.
77. Killer whales are the main predator of humpback whales. Sharks will also attack young, sick, or already dead humpbacks.
78. Calves drink up to 600 lt of milk per day from their mothers.
79. Singing whales produce sounds of around 170 decibels -like standing behind a jet aeroplane at take off.
80. Behaviours include: breeching, spyhopping, tail slapping, pectoral slapping, bubble blowing.
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