HUMPBACK WHALE (B)
Megaptera novaeangliae (Borowski 1781)
Other Common Names
Humpbacked whale, bunch, hump whale, or hunchbacked whale.
Description
Humpback whales reach a length of 53 feet (16.2 m).
The body is robust, narrowing rapidly on the tail stock. The head is quite broad and rounded, somewhat like that of the blue whale. The head ridge characteristic of other balaenopterid species is indistinct and is replaced in prominence by a string of fleshy "knobs" or protuberances, many more of which are randomly distributed on the top of the head and on the lower jaw. There is a distinctive rounded projection near the tip of the lower jaw. Humpback whales carry many barnacles and whale lice. The baleen plates are all black with black or olive-black bristles.
The flippers are very long (nearly a third as long as the body), are scalloped on at least the leading edge, and are nearly all white.
The dorsal fin, located slightly more than two-thirds of the way back on the back in approximately the same position as that of the fin whale, is small and varies in size and shape from a small, triangular nubbin to a more substantial, sharply falcate fin. The dorsal fin frequently includes a step or hump, which is quite distinct when the animal arches its back to begin a dive and from which the species derives its common name.
Humpback whales are basically black in color with a white region of varying size on the belly, which upon close examination may often be seen to be crosshatched with thin dark lines; the flippers and the undersides of the flukes also are white.