The calves nurse for almost a year, growing slowly. Once nursed, they keep growing for another 8-10 years before reaching their full adult length. They grow up to 19 metres long and can weigh up to 40 tons (36 metric tons).
Male humpbacks are known for their singing. They produce some of the most complex “songs” in the animal kingdom. We have recorded many of their high-pitched squeals, whistles and low, rumbling gurgles. Perhaps the males believe that those with the best vocal abilities attract the best mates. They certainly increase the connectedness of those living in their pod.
Humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, are a species of baleen whale for whom I hold a special place in my heart.
Baleens are whales who feed on plankton and other wee oceanic tasties that they consume through their baleens, a specialised filter of keratin that frames their mouths. There are fifteen species of baleen whales. They inhabit all major oceans, in a wide band running from the Antarctic ice edge to 81°N latitude.
In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, whales are known as g̱wa̱'ya̱m. Both the California grey and the Humpback whale live on the coast. Only a small number of individuals in First Nation society had the right to harpoon a whale. It was generally only the Chief who was bestowed this great honour.
Humpback whales like to feed close to shore and enter the local inlets. Around Vancouver Island and along the coast of British Columbia, this made them a welcome food source as the long days of winter passed into Spring.
Humpback whales are rorquals, members of the Balaenopteridae family that includes the blue, fin, Bryde's, sei and minke whales. The rorquals are believed to have diverged from the other families of the suborder Mysticeti during the middle Miocene. While cetaceans were historically thought to have descended from mesonychids— which would place them outside the order Artiodactyla— molecular evidence supports them as a clade of even-toed ungulates — our dear Artiodactyla. Baleen whales split from toothed whales, the Odontoceti, around 34 million years ago.
