What is unique about the Southern Right Whale?
Callosities are white or cream patches of raised skin found all over the head and around the jaw; each whale has a unique pattern of callosities and these are used by researchers to recognise individuals. The mouthline is dramatically arched to accommodate their long baleen plates inside the mouth.
How do you identify a Southern Right Whale?
Southern Right Whales can be identified by the lack of a dorsal fin and distinctive skin growths called callosities on their heads. These look like barnacles and occur on top of the head, chin and lower jaw. Callosities are as unique as a human’s fingerprint. This is how individual whales can be identified.
Why do right whales have callosities?
They are full of life, in the form of cyamids. Cyamids, or whale lice, are tiny crustaceans that live on many whales species of whales–including North Atlantic right whales. The cyamids use the callosities for shelter and food, grabbing whatever floats by as the whale swims.
What are the bumps on right whales?
Unlike other whales, a right whale has distinctive callosities (roughened patches of skin) on its head. The callosities appear white due to large colonies of cyamids (whale lice). Each individual has a unique callosities pattern.
Why is it called a Southern Right Whale?
The Southern Right Whale was once abundant in the waters of southern Australia but numbers were drastically reduced during intensive whaling in the 1800s. It was called a ‘right whale’ as it was the right whale to catch because of its meat and high oil content.
How long can a Southern Right Whale hold its breath?
Southern Right Whales normally dives for 10-20 minutes while feeding, but can hold their breath for up to 1h.
What is the difference between a humpback and a Southern Right Whale?
Southern right whales have no fins on their backs. They have patches of roughened skin that can look like “a pile of stones” on their heads. Humpback whales can be distinguished by their small dorsal fin and long pectoral flippers, and they show their tail flukes more often.
Do all whales have callosities?
Callosities form a unique pattern on every right whale and though callosities which are overgrown break off, the patterns do not change over a lifetime. This makes them a very useful tool for the purposes of photo-identification and conservation. The evolutionary significance of callosities is unknown.
Do whales remove barnacles?
Gray whales feed on bottom sediments and scrape off barnacles and whale lice as they feed.
Do barnacles hurt a whale?
They don’t harm the whales or feed on the whales, like true parasites do. Barnacles don’t serve any obvious advantage to the whales, but they give helpful lice a place to hang onto the whale without getting washed away by water. Barnacles find the slow-swimming gray whale a good ride through nutrient-rich ocean waters.
Can you pull barnacles off whales?
As barnacles do not seem to cause any lasting damage to whales, it is not necessary to remove them. The only situation in which they must be removed is if there are too many barnacles clinging to whales, which can cause skin irritation.
What whale is the biggest?
Blue whaleWhale / Biggest
The Antarctic blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus ssp. Intermedia) is the biggest animal on the planet, weighing up to 400,000 pounds (approximately 33 elephants) and reaching up to 98 feet in length.
Why do southern right whales breach?
It is believed whales do this for several reasons … to communicate, dislodge parasites, get a higher view, drive off predators or just play. Southern Rights usually only breach about three quarters of their bodies out of the water, but others such as Humpbacks can actually jump clear.
How can whales sleep without drowning?
To avoid drowning during sleep, it is crucial that marine mammals retain control of their blowhole. The blowhole is a flap of skin that is thought to open and close under the voluntary control of the animal.
Do whales sleep at night?
Unlike most dolphins who often hunt for their prey at night, most whales can often sleep throughout the night.
Do whales sleep?
Observations of bottlenose dolphins in aquariums and zoos, and of whales and dolphins in the wild, show two basic methods of sleeping: they either rest quietly in the water, vertically or horizontally, or sleep while swimming slowly next to another animal.
How do whales sleep?
Can barnacles attach to human skin?
In Your Hand. Yes, barnacles can grow in human flesh.
Do whales feel itchy?
Yes, marine mammals such as seals, whales, and dolphins have been known to scratch themselves. The sensation of itchiness is generally thought to help an animal locate something on its skin that shouldn’t be there, such as an insect.
Why do Orcas not get barnacles?
In the case of barnacles and whales, only the barnacles benefit from attaching to the whales, but at no biological cost to the whale. This type of symbiotic relationship is known as commensalism. In this case, attaching to the whales gives the barnacles a stable place to live, a free ride, and access to plenty of food.
Can you pick barnacles off a whale?
What eats barnacles off of whales?
Living upon the back of a Gray Whale means they are free from attacks by the most common enemies of the various barnacle species. Stationary barnacles are regularly attacked and eaten by sea stars (starfish), sea cucumbers, some sea worms, as well as various snails and whelks.
What’s the biggest animal ever to live?
the blue whale
Far bigger than any dinosaur, the blue whale is the largest known animal to have ever lived. An adult blue whale can grow to a massive 30m long and weigh more than 180,000kg – that’s about the same as 40 elephants, 30 Tyrannosaurus Rex or 2,670 average-sized men.
What is the loudest animal in the world?
The loudest animal of all
Not only can baleen whales emit calls that travel farther than any other voice in the animal kingdom, these giants of the deep also create the loudest vocalisations of any creature on earth: the call of a blue whale can reach 180 decibels – as loud as a jet plane, a world record.
Why do whales slap the surface?
An aggressive display where the humpback whale will thrash the surface of the water by whipping its upraised flukes from side to side. Humpbacks will slap the surface of the water as a warning signal to others or bash other whales during aggressive competition.