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Happy Friday everyone! Today's fish of the day is the bowhead whale!
The bowhead whale, known by scientific name X is a baleen whale in the right whale family X. This means that they filter feed their food, and the common name for the right whale family comes from whaling days, where whales in this family specifically were known to filter feed at the surface, and consequently were the easiest or the "right" whales to kill.
Right whales are identified from some very prominent shapes such as their strange shaped fins said to look like mittens, strange shaped mouths, and the lack of dorsal fins. Bowhead whales, specifically, are best known for being the longest living mammals known. The longest living specimen ever found lived 211 years, although some estimates for how long they can live go up to the 270's. Many bowhead whales alive today were alive when whaling was still common practice in this country. It has been found that the bowhead whale is greater resistant to cancers, helping their long lifespans.
The bowhead whale lives around the northern section of the planet, the round bow shape to their head being used for pushing through ice so they can breathe. This is also why they lack dorsal fins, as much of their time is spent under the sea ice, hunting for shirm, krill, zooplankton, and others. Like most other whales their lungs are made for holding breath, most dives are made of 10-20 minutes, but there have been recorded dives as long as 40 minutes with these whales. Their swimming speed is slow, only 1-3 miles an hour, and they prefer to remain close to the surface, but they have been observed diving as deep as 500 ft. Their swimming speed has been known to increase when fleeing danger to as high as 6 miles an hour, and when hunting as high as 4-5!
These whales have an annual breeding in the months of March to August, and they reach sexual maturity in their 10-15 years old. A calf will stay with their mother for up to five years with this species, Adults can grow up to 66 feet long, in the largest measured case, however most only grow to around 50 ft or so.
Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday!
