Fishin for Facts: Right Whales

Common name: northern right whale      &     southern right whale
Genus species:  Eubalaena glacialis        &    Eubalaena australis
 

Right whales can reach lengths up to 17 meters (58 feet) long. They can weight as much as 100 metric tons. Calves can be 4.5 to 6 meters (14.8 to 19.6 feet) at birth. 

       Right whales are baleen whales. For dinner, they prefer copepods. Once in a while they'll eat krill.  Right whales are skimmers. That means they swim along the surface with their mouth open skimming and trapping their food in with baleen.  (Can you see a bit of the baleen in this photo?)

    Why right whale? Many many years ago, in the heyday of whale hunting, they and bowhead whales were  "right" whale to hunt. That's because they had the longest baleen and most blubber per body size. An adult right whale's baleen can be  2.8 meters (9 feet) long. (Right whales have 220 to 260 baleen plates.)

    A right whale's gigantic head can be 1/4 to 1/3 the length of its body. The black to brown whales sometimes have white patches on their belly or chin. They also have thick rough or crusty patches of skin called "callosities" on their jaw, head and near the blowhole.  (You can see this whale's callosity on top if its head. Its mouth is open and some of its baleen is also visible.)

    They are listed as endangered by the International Conservation Union (IUCN)

Photos courtesy of Southwest Fisheries Science Center/
NOAA Fisheries Service

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