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Right whale Facts

Right whale Facts
Right whale belongs to the group of baleen whales. There are three species of right whales that can be found in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, usually close to the shore. Right whales are the most endangered types of whales. Only several hundred animals are left in the wild. Right whales were hunted nearly to extinction in the past. Even though they are globally protected today, right whales often die as a result of collision with ships, noise and chemical pollution of the water and due to entanglement in the fishing nets.
Interesting Right whale Facts:
Right whale can reach 50 feet in length and 70 tons of weight.
Right whales are usually dark grey or black colored.
Right whale has large head covered with rough, bumpy patches of skin, called callosities. Each whale has unique arrangement of callosities, which facilitates identification of individual whales.
Right whales have 8 inches long baleen plates instead of teeth. These comb-like structures act like sieve which separates food from the ingested water.
Right whales have wide backs without dorsal fin. Their flippers are paddle-shaped. Body ends with triangular tail. 40% of the body consists of blubber.
Right whales were named that way because they were ideal ("right") sort of whales for hunting in the past. These animals were easy targets due to inability to swim fast and because they often swim near the coast. Also, whalers were able to easily transport killed animals to the shore, because corpse of right whale floats at the surface of water.
Right whales eat zooplankton (copepods) and krill. They can swallow 2.6 tons of food daily.
Right whales swim at the speed of only 6 miles per hour. They like to breach out of the water.
Right whale can spend 20 minutes under the water. 5 to 6 shallow dives often precede longer diving session.
Right whales are usually solitary creatures. They occasionally swim in groups composed of couple of animals.
Right whales use low and medium-pitched sounds for communication. Water which circulates through the baleen plates during feeding produces rattle-like sound.
Right whales migrate from cold waters rich in food toward the warm waters to reproduce.
Mating and calving takes place during the winter. Males compete for the female's attention. Right whales are highly promiscuous (they have more than one mating partner).
Female gives birth every 3 to 4 years. Pregnancy lasts 12 months and ends with one baby (calf). Baby depends on the mother's milk for the first 10 to 12 months of its life. Bond between the mother and baby is strong. Mother occasionally swims on its back and uses flippers to hold the baby. Young animals reach sexual maturity at the age of 7.5 to 9 years.
Right whale can survive around 70 years in the wild.


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