Bowhead whale
The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) is an Arctic baleen whale, a right whale with a large, bow-shaped head that is up to 40% of its body length. The arched mouth is up to 10 feet (3 m) wide and 20 feet (6 m) deep. The eyes are very small and lips are huge. Bowheads live in pods, are rich in blubber (a subcutaneous layer 20-inch (50 cm) thick in places), and have 2 blowholes.
| Balaena, Balaena mysticetus Temporal range: Earliest Pleistocene-Present
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| File:Bowheads42.jpg | |
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| Genus: | Balaena
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| Species: | B. mysticetus
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| Balaena mysticetus | |
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| Bowhead whale range | |
Bowhead Whale Media
- GreenlandWhaleLyd3.jpg
Skeleton of a bowhead whale
- Faroe stamp 198 Baleana mysticetus.jpg
1990 stamp of the Faroe Islands with a drawing depicting a mother and a calf
- Grönlandwal 6-1999.jpg
Resting on water surface in Foxe Basin
- Bowhead-1 Kate Stafford edit (16272151841).jpg
Breaching off Alaskan coast
A bowhead whale spyhops in Ulbansky Bay, northwestern Okhotsk Sea
- 18th century arctic whaling.jpg
Eighteenth-century engraving showing Dutch whalers hunting bowhead whales in the Arctic
- The Chase of the Bowhead Whale.jpg
The Chase of the Bowhead Whale (1909) by Clifford Warren Ashley
- Bowhead Whale 2002-08-10.jpg
Inuit man and child standing on bowhead whale after a 2002 subsistence hunt
References
- ↑ {{{assessors}}} (2008). Balaena mysticetus. 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2008. Retrieved on {{{downloaded}}}.
Other websites
Media related to Bowhead whale at Wikimedia Commons
16x16px Data related to Balaena mysticetus at Wikispecies
