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It has been calculated that a single breath from a mature blue whale can inflate up 2000 balloons.
It is now believed that the most recent land ancestors of whales were hippos!
Sperm whales can potentially live to 60 or 70 years of age. Males reach their physical maturity at 45, while females reach maturity at age 30.
Researchers distinguish individual finback whales using a grey-tan swath on the right side of the body (called the "chevron") and the shape of the dorsal fin. A catalog of fin whales is housed at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Right whales are identified by using their callosite pattern, which contains rough skin, barnacles, and whale lice.
There are four species of dolphins that inhabit freshwater rivers: tucuxi, boto, baiji, and the indus/ganges river dolphin.
Humpback whale females typically have calves once every 2-4 years. We have seen a number of cases of calving in consecutive years, and even multiple instances of calving in three consecutive years.
The narwhal, an unusual toothed whale with a tooth piercing the upper lip, is believed to be the basis of the legendary unicorn.
The dorsal fin, which is on most cetaceans is similar to a keel on a boat, is used to stabilize the animal as it swims through the water.
The blue whale heart is the size of a small car, and a small child can stand in the major arteries leading from the heart.
Sperm whales are believed to be capable of dives as deep as two miles down (over 10,000 feet), though most dives are probably less than a few thousand feet, typically in search of food.
New technology is allowing researchers to track whales from satellites. One tagged northern right whale mother and her calf went from Nova Scotia to New Jersey and back in just six weeks!
Despite the fact that whalers found twin fetuses in approximately 1% of pregnant females, no reliable cases of live twins have been reported in large whales.
Bowhead whales have a skull that is unusually thick. They use this to break through ice up to a foot thick in order to breathe, and spend their entire lives in arctic waters.
The sperm whale family pod is directed by the biggest female, since their society is a matriarchal one.
Humpback whales were the first to be found to sing "songs." The song is now thought to be a male mating call during breeding season. It is now known that many other species sing songs, but humpback song is the most complex.
Some dolphin species have been seen to beach themselves on purpose to go after prey (killer whale and bottlenose dolphin).
There is no known winter breeding ground for fin whales anywhere in the world. Scientists think they may go offshore and disperse during the winter. Reproduction is seasonal, but no concentration area is known.
In addition to eating salmon, seals, whales, dolphins, and sea birds, killer whales (orca) have been seen to kill and eat swimming deer and moose!
There are up to 10,000 gallons of water, equal to 256,000 glasses of water, in each feeding mouthful of an adult blue whale. Of course, they don't swallow that salt water; they use their baleen to strain it out.
The northern right whale is one of the most endangered of cetaceans, numbering just over an estimated 300 animals.
Despite what many people think, whales and dolphins do not mate for life.
The only natural predator of humpback whales is the killer whale (orcas), and possibly sharks to very young calves or badly injured whales. Up to 15% of humpback whales in an area may have scars from orca attacks that they have escaped.
The sperm whale is distinctive from baleen whales because it has a single blowhole on the left side of its body. It spouts in a forward left direction.
Fin whales can move quickly over large distances. In 1980, one fin whale was radio tracked covering a straight-line distance of over 1,000 miles in five days as it moved from the coast of Iceland to the coast of East Greenland.
A blue whale calf can swim 22 mph.
Wild hybrid whales have been found several times. Whalers have described several blue/fin whale hybrids, and researchers working off of Fiji believe they photographed a hybrid humpback/blue whale!
Gray whales spend the winter in shallow enclosed lagoons on the western side of Baja California. The sheltered, calm waters aid in survival of young calves; evaporation from warm temperatures helps increase the saltiness of the lagoons, helping young calves float more easily; and the strong currents allow the calf to develop strength for the long migration to the arctic.
Resident killer whale pods are the only mammalian species where female and male offspring stay with their mother throughout their entire lives.
Dolphins, commonly thought to be warm water animals, are found in all of the worlds oceans including the polar regions (not all species).
Humpback whales form small, generally cooperative, groups on their feeding grounds. On their breeding grounds, however, males sometimes form large groups where they battle for the position next to the female, often physically striking each other violently.
Over 50% of Northern right whales and New England humpback whales have scars from prior fishing gear entanglements.
The latin name for the blue whale is Balenoptera musculus. "Musculus" means "winged mouse." Linnaeus himself, developer of the biological classification system, named it in 1758, as a joke.
Fin whales are one of the fastest whales, and can hit top speeds of over 35 miles per hour! They use this speed to burst into their prey, usually fish schools, and capture the unsuspecting fish in large numbers. They usually travel at 4 to 7 miles per hour.
A blue whale calf drinks about 130 gallons of milk per day, and gains up to 200 pounds per day during periods of its nursing period.
Sperm whales use their sonar to identify and capture prey. They also use it to stun their prey.
A brand new species of beaked whale has recently been discovered.
The vaquita, a relative of the harbor porpoise found in the Sea of Cortez, is commonly regarded as the smallest cetacean in the world with a length of only 4 feet.
Humpback whales have the longest migration of any known mammal. A population that feeds off the Antarctic Peninsula has now been found to breed off Columbia, just north of the equator. This is a one-way migration of over 5,000 miles.
Some freshwater dolphins are blind and only use their sonar to "see".
Right whales are identified by using their callosity pattern which contains rough skin, barnacles, and whale lice.
The killer whale is the largest member of the dolphin family, attaining lengths of 35 feet.
A 160 ton blue whale is equal in weight to 30 bull elephants, or 1830 adult humans weighing 175 pounds each.
Sperm whales form strong kinship bonds with the other members of the pod. Mass strandings are often caused when the head female becomes sick and strands. The others follow her, because they are accustomed to following what she does.
Although some people think humpback whales feed only on krill (small, shrimp-like crustaceans), they are primarily fish feeders in most of their range, such as in our area. They do feed on krill in Antarctic waters, where much of the early feeding studies were done.
A blue whale produces the loudest and the lowest of any animal:180 dB and 10 - 20 Hz.
Southern right whales have been seen to raise their flukes in the wind and use them as sails.
Sperm whales can potentially live to 60 or 70 years of age. Males reach their physical maturity at 45, while females reach maturity at age 30.
Many toothed whales are believed to use their sonar capabilities to stun their prey with a "sonic pulse".
A blue whale's eye is the size of a small teacup and their external ear is the size of the tip of a pencil.
Gray whales, migrants along the west coast of North America, are able to swim in water as shallow as 6 feet!
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