Fin whales are the second largest animal in the world.--At a full grown length of 85 feet, they are the second largest mammal too, second to the huge Blue Whale.-
The Fin whale has many names, because it inhabits oceans worldwide. It is also called the Finn, Finnback, Rorqual, and Razorback. --The fin whale was safe from early whalers because of its speed. A fin whale can go up to 35 mph in short bursts. --Fin whales main prey is krill. They also eat herring and other small shoaling fish. . There are many things that make them amazing and unique.
Like most other cetaceans, the female is longer in length than the male. A full grown female may be up to 85 feet long, while males max out at 70 feet. The weight of a fin whale is 45-75 tons. Fin Whales can be easy to identify because of their distinctive coloring. The lower jaw of the fin whale has asymmetrical pigmentation. The right side of the jaw is a creamy white color on the right side, and dark grey on the left. The colors continue and repeat on the baleen plates, but change on the tongue. The rest of the underside is white, including the flippers and the flukes. Also on the underside is a series of 56-100 pleats, that extend down the body to the navel. The top of their body is a dark grey color, with two lightly colored “Chevrons” stretching from their blowhole to the dorsal fin on the back of the body. The dorsal fin is located 2/3 of the way back on their body. The dorsal fin can grow to be 60 cm in height, and is very noticeable.
The fin whale lives in all oceans of the world. Usually, the fin whale lives out in the open ocean, but is seen near land. The depth that fin whales can dive to is 755 feet deep. Fin Whales are residents of places off the Washington, Oregon, and California coast, which means that they live there year round. Fin Whales usually live with 6-10 members, but there are also single fin whales and couples. Fin Whales mate in subtropical waters where a single calf is born in mid winter. The gestation period for a fin whale is 11 months. Length at birth for a fin whale is from 14-20 feet long. Calves are born every three years.Fin Whales can consume a mind boggling amount of 3 tons of food a day! In the northern hemisphere, fin whales eat mostly shoaling fish, such as herring, as well as squid, euphausiids and copepods. In the Southern hemisphere, fin whales feed on varieties of krill and amphipods.
Fin whales feed using the swallowing technique. They lie on the surface on their sides. They gulp water and their prey, and then strain the water out of the baleen plates. Like many other baleen whales, the north hemisphere, fin whales eat more than the fin whales in the southern hemisphere.
Most fin whales migrate to subtropical waters for the winter months, and to the arctic and Antarctic in the summer months. During the summer months, the whales that inhabit the Pacific Northwest migrate to the Bering Sea and up to Alaska’s coat and the Aleutian islands. In the Gulf on California and the Mediterranean sea, fin whales live there year round, and are known as residents.
Because fin whales live in all of the worlds oceans, there are many names for them in the USA, fin whales can also be called Razorback, Finner, Finback, and common rorqual. In Latin America, including Mexico, fin whales are called ballena de aleta, which means whale of height. Japan, nagasu kujira, in many Scandinavian countries, fin whale is known as finvhal, and finwhal.
Fin Whale project
Fin Whale
Balaenoptera physalus
Class -mammalia
Order -cetacia
Suborder -Mysticeti
Family -Balaenopteridae
Genus- Balaenoptera
Nickname- Greyhound of the sea.
-Michael Gore
