Mammals of the WorldHumpback Whale
Megaptera novaeangliae
- Order
- Artiodactyla
- Family
- Balaenopteridae
- Genus
- Megaptera
- IUCN status
- LC
- Distribution
- American Samoa|Angola|Anguilla|Antarctica|Antigua and Barbuda|Argentina|Aruba|Australia|Bahamas|Bahrain|Barbados|Belgium|Belize|Benin|Bermuda|Bonaire|Sint Eustatius|Saba|Brazil|Brunei|Cape Verde|Cameroon|Canada|Cayman Islands|Chile|Cocos Islands|Colombia|Comoros|Republic of the Congo|Democratic Republic of the Congo|Cook Islands|Costa Rica|Cuba|Curaçao|Cote d'Ivoire|Denmark|Djibouti|Dominica|Dominican Republic|Ecuador|Galápagos Islands|Egypt|El Salvador|Equatorial Guinea|Falkland Islands|Fiji|France|French Guiana|French Polynesia|Gabon|Gambia|Germany|Ghana|Greenland|Grenada|Guadeloupe|Guam|Guatemala|Guinea|Guinea-Bissau|Guyana|Honduras|Iceland|India|Indonesia|Iran|Iraq|Ireland|Israel|Jamaica|Japan|Jordan|Kenya|Kiribati|North Korea|South Korea|Kuwait|Liberia|Madagascar|Malaysia|Maldives|Marshall Islands|Martinique|Mauritania|Mauritius|Mayotte|Mexico|Micronesia|Montserrat|Morocco|Mozambique|Namibia|Nauru|Netherlands|New Caledonia|New Zealand|Nicaragua|Nigeria|Niue|Norfolk Island|Northern Marianas|Norway|Oman|Pakistan|Palau|Panama|Papua New Guinea|Peru|Philippines|Pitcairn|Portugal|Azores|Madeira|Puerto Rico|Qatar|Russia|Réunion|Saint Barthélemy|Saint Helena|Saint Kitts and Nevis|Saint Lucia|Sint Maarten|Saint Vincent and the Grenadines|Samoa|São Tomé and Príncipe|Saudi Arabia|Senegal|Seychelles|Sierra Leone|Singapore|Christmas Island|Solomon Islands|Somalia|South Africa|Prince Edward Islands|South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands|Spain|Canary Islands|Sri Lanka|Suriname|Sweden|Taiwan|China|Tanzania|East Timor|Togo|Tokelau|Tonga|Trinidad and Tobago|Turks and Caicos Islands|Tuvalu|United Arab Emirates|United Kingdom|United States|Uruguay|Vanuatu|Venezuela|Vietnam|United States Virgin Islands|British Virgin Islands|Wallis and Futuna|Yemen
- Realm
- Marine
Other names: Bunch Whale|Hump Whale|Hunchback Whale
About this species
- Size
- 14–17m
- Weight
- Up to 40 tonnes
- Diet
- Mostly krill and small fish, often caught with bubbles
- Range
- Oceans worldwide; an isolated non-migratory population in the northern Indian Ocean, mainly around Oman, also recorded off South Asia and Pakistan
The humpback whale is a baleen whale and rorqual with a distinctive body shape, long pectoral fins and tubercles on the head. Adults are 14–17 m long and weigh up to 40 tonnes, with females usually 1–1.5 m longer than males. The upper side is generally black and the underside varies from black to white; the baleen plates, 540–800 in all, are black. Males sing complex songs lasting 4–33 minutes (Wikipedia, general species account).
Humpbacks usually migrate between feeding areas near the poles and breeding areas near the equator, but an isolated, non-migratory population feeds and breeds in the northern Indian Ocean, mainly in the Arabian Sea around Oman. It has also been recorded in the Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf and off the coasts of Pakistan and South Asia. The diet is mostly krill and small fish, often caught with bubbles. Whaling brought the world population to around 5,000 by the 1960s (Wikipedia, general species account).
Description: Wildlife of Korea guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com); general species information paraphrased from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)