Humpback whale

The humpback whale ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) or jubarte belongs to the Baleine S with pennons (or Mysticète S). It is a Mammifère Cétacé of big size: the adults reach usually 12 to 16 meters length and weigh on average 36 tons. The humpback whale carries out spectacular jumps out of water, has long pectoral fins and its song is very elaborate. She lives in the oceans and the seas of the whole world. She is a subject privileged for tourism of observation of the whales ( Whale-watching ).

General description

The humpback whales are easily recognizable with many criteria. Their body is massive. The top of the animal is entirely black, the lower part is rather blanchâtre. The head and the lower Mâchoire are covered small protuberances called tubers, which are in fact of the pilous follicules and are characteristic of the species.

Large the Fin caudal, black and white, leaves largely out of water when the whale plunges. The posterior edge of this fin is corrugated. The drawings of this fin are specific to each whale and can be used for its individual identification.

Each pectoral fin (also black and white, and of a specific drawing to each individual) can reach until one the length third of the body. It is much more than at any other Cétacé. To explain this clear difference in length, several assumptions were suggested. It could be a question of an evolutionary advantage significant ensuring a better maneuverability. That could also allow, thanks to more a large surface of contact, to better control the temperature interns at the time of the migration S between the zones of hot Climat and those of cold climate.

When the humpback whale makes surface and expels by its vent the air coming from the Poumon S, the Souffle causes a cloud which can reach 3 meters, in form of Chou-fleur.

The aileron dorsal, squat, appears out of water shortly after the emission of this breath. It continues to be visible when the animal makes the round back to start a Plongée, but disappears before the caudal fin emerges.

Like the others balénoptéridés, the humpback whale has ventral furrows and pennons. The furrows are in fact of the folds which run in parallel between them of the jaw lower until the Nombril (about until half of the belly of the animal). They allow a very broad deployment of the mouth (a little the made-to-order whose a Accordéon opens). Of a number generally ranging between 16 to 20, they are fewer and as less marked as at the Rorqual S. the pennons are corneas productions of the lip which filter and retain the food preys. The humpback whale has 270 to 400 pennons of dark color laid out on each side of the mouth.

The females are larger than the males. The Femelle S carry a lobe (which is lacking in the males) approximately 15 centimetres in diameter in their genital area . That makes it possible to distinguish the male S from the females if one can see the lower part of the whale, because the Pénis of the male remains on the other hand almost always hidden in the genital slit. The whales generally low put all both or three years. The Gestation lasts eleven months surroundings. The humpback whales can live from 40 to 50 years.

Social behavior

The social organization of the humpback whales is rather loose. Usually, the individuals live alone or attend transitory groups which are done for a few hours and demolish themselves. The groups can be maintained longer in summer to cooperate in the search and the capture for food. Durable relations several months or even several years, couples or small groups, were described, but they are rare. The world distribution of the humpback whales recovers those of many other species of whales and Dauphin S: one can thus observe humpback whales near other species (for example of the whales of Minke) but there are very few social interactions.

The sexual parades are held during the winter. The competition for a partner is often intense. Groups of males from two to twenty individuals gather around one only female and are devoted to exhibitions varied to establish the domination. The tournament lasts several hours and the size of the group fluctuates with the departures of males depities or the arrivals of new applicants. The figures carried out include/understand vertical jumps, straightenings out, blows of water with the fins (pectoral or caudal), loads and dodgings. It is supposed that the songs also play a big role in this competition, but the scientists do not know if they are used for the males to be identified and compare themselves between them, if they are a call to the coupling between the male and the female, or both. All these vocal and physical demonstrations also were observed in the absence of potential partners and constitute also probably general tools of communication.

Food

The species is nourished exclusively during the summer and lives on its reserves of grease during the winter. It is an active predator which drives out the Krill and the benches of small fish the such Hareng S, the Capelan S or the lançon S, using of the direct attack or dazing its preys by striking water with its fins.

The technique of the most original fishing of the humpback whales is that of the net with bubbles. Several whales form a group, swim quickly around and below a fish bench and release air by their vents. The bubbles form a visual barrier which confines the bench in an increasingly restricted space. Suddenly, the whales precipitate upwards through the curtain of bubbles, opened large mouth, swallowing thousands of fish of only one goulée. The diameter of the net with bubbles can reach 30 m and require the co-operation of at least twelve animals. It is undoubtedly the most spectacular fact of co-operation of marine mammals.

The Orque S attack the humpback whales, those are generally left there by some scars but it is probable that whale-calves are sometimes killed.

Song

See also: Song of the whales


Les humpback whales is famous as much for their acrobatics than for their long complex songs. They emit during hours, sometimes days, serious reasons of notes which vary amplitude and for frequency, by repeating coherent and encased sequences. The whales sing only during the season of coupling: it is thus supposed that they are songs of seduction. It will be also noted that the personal song of a whale evolves/moves slowly during the years and never returns to the same sequence of notes even after decades.

Populations

One meets the humpback whale in all the oceans, in broad band going from the latitudes 60°S to 65°N. It is a migrating species, spending the summers in cool water of the high latitudes, being coupled and reproducing in tropical or subtropical water.

It is called also sometimes fin-back whale with bump .

Taxonomy

This whale has for the first time identified under the name of “whale of the England News” by Mathurin Jacques Brisson in Regnum Animale published in 1756. In 1781, the German naturalist Borowski described it for the first time starting from observations made in New England and for scientific name the Latin translation of the name given by Brisson gives him: Balaena novaeangliae . At the beginning of the 19th century, Bernard Germain of Lacépède replaces this species in the kind of the Balaenoptera under the name of jubartes . In 1846, John Edward Gray creates a new kind monotypic of Megaptera starting from the Greek mega-/μεγα- large, and ptera/πτερα wing to refer to these large pectoral fins. The species is then called Megaptera longpinna . Remington Kellogg re-elects the species in Megaptera novaeangliae .

Relations with the men

The humpback whales appear in the accounts of the sailors of all times. The spectacle of these gigantic creatures leaping out of water was undoubtedly attractive, perhaps even alarming. The humpback whale is probably to some extent in the beginning of the marine myths of monsters and of sirens which charms by their songs the navigators and involve them in water until death. This very day, the plungers which swim close to humpback whales singing say disorientated because the gravity and the force of the notes are sufficient to make resound their rib cage vigorously.

Drive out with the whale

See also: Hunting for the whale

The first written testimony of setting with died of a humpback whale goes back to 1608 to broad of Nantucket. One undoubtedly killed out of the whales of this species when the opportunity arose some well before this date and one continued to make then it at a rate/rhythm growing during the following centuries. At the 18th century, one carried out the commercial value of the humpback whales, they then became of the common preys for the whalers during many years.

At the 19th century, much of country (in particular the the United States) drove out them in mass in the Atlantic Ocean and to a lesser extent in the oceans Indien and Pacifique. The introduction of the explosive Harpon at the end of the 19th century still accelerated the catches. With the opening of the seas the Antarctic S in 1904, the decline became dramatic for all the populations of humpback whales of the world.

During the 20th century, at least 200.000 whales were captured. The global population decreased of more than 90%. To prevent the extinction of the species, a general Moratoire on the hunting of the humpback whales was instituted in 1966. It is always into force today. In its book on the humpback whales Humpback Whales (1996) , Phil Clapham, a scientist of the Smithsonian Institute, declare that “this destruction without measurement of one of the most splendid creatures of the Earth is one of largest our many crimes against the environment”.

When in 1966, the members of the Commission International Whale-boat decided of a moratorium for the humpback whales, those had become so rare that their hunting was not profitable any more. One then counted historically 250.000 recorded catches, but the true figure of killed animals is doubtless much more important. The Soviet Union was well-known for deliberately lying on its figures, it had declared 2.710 catches whereas it is thought now that there were 48.000 of it.

In 2004, a hunting limited to some animals is allowed off the islands of Saint-Vincent and Grenadian in the the Caribbean. It is thought that the authorized quota does not endanger the local population.

Tourism whaler

The humpback whales are generally curious about the objects of their environment. They approach often readily boats and turn around. Whereas this attitude is connected with the suicide when the ship is a whaler, it made humpback whales a support of the Tourisme of observation of the whales ( whale watching ) in much of places around the world since the years 1990.

The sites of observation include/understand for example the American peaceful coast with broad of the state of Washington, of Vancouver and of the Alaska, the the Bay of Biscay in France, the Bay of Byron to broad of Sydney, the New England, the peninsula of Snaefelsnes in the west of the Iceland, the Golfe of the St-Laurent to the Quebec etc the humpback whale is very popular because it jumps regularly, and proclamation a variety of other social behaviors which can captivate the public.

Like the other Cetacea, the mothers are generally extremely protective towards their small and thus seek to place themselves between any boat and the whale-calf before moving away highly. The tourist operators are thus invited to follow a code of conduct, to avoid Stress er unnecessarily the mothers.

A humpback whale albino, supposed born in 1990, which travels regularly along the east coast of the Australia became famous in the media buildings because of its very rare color. It was called Migaloo (in language indigenous the “white boy”) but one speculated a long time in his Sexe, until June 2004 when it found a partner and proved that it was well a male. Because of the great interest carried to this individual, the environmentalists have fears that it does not become disturbed by the great number of boats which followed it each day. The government of the Queensland then ordered a zone of exclusion of 500 meters around the animal.

Seek

Although one knew perfectly the anatomy of the humpback whales following the captures of the whalers, the phenomena of migrations and the social behavior of the species were really described only in the years 1960 thanks to two separated studies, pionnières on the matter, that of R. Chittleborough and that of W.H. Dawbin.

Roger Payne and Scott McVEy studied the species in 1971. Their analysis of the songs attracted the world interest of the media on the species and brought the public to the idea of a high intelligence of the animal. This impression is probably incorrect, but contributed nevertheless to support the movements of opposition to hunting to the whale in many countries

The scientists realizing that the reasons for the caudal fin could characterize an individual, the humpback whale became the most studied whale because the other species did not have such a means of identification. A study, being based on data of 1973 to 1988 of animals of the North Atlantic provided detailed informations over the gestation periods, of weaning, on speeds of growth, etc One could model dynamic population precisely as if one had used techniques of capture and marking. A photographic catalog indexing all the known whales of the North Atlantic was set up at this period; it is followed today by Wheelock College. Similar projects began in the Northern Pacific and other areas from the sphere.

Fictions

In Moby Dick , a Romance whose principal protagonist is a Cachalot, the author Hermann Melville describes the humpback whale like “more the player and merriest of all the whales, brewing water and making scum more than any other” .

The extinction of the humpback whales is one of the central elements of the film Star Trek IV: Return to earth. In the Scenario, a mission Extra-terrestre arrives on the Ground at the 23e century and tries to enter in communication with the whales of which it had been discovered that they were an intelligent species. But as the whales had disappeared with the 21e century (according to Spock), the attempt at contact fails; the insistence of the visitors proves then threatening for the Earth. To prevent the worst, the crew of the Enterprise , on board a stolen sidereal vessel to the Klingon S at the time of Star Trek III, goes up time until the 20th century to bring back a couple of humpback whales, and to save the Earth of the destruction of it.

See too

Source

References

  • The Emergence off Whales: Evolutionary patterns in the Origin off Cetacea. J.G.M. Thewissen (ED). Plenum, New York.
  • Humpback Whales . Phil Clapham. 1996. ISBN 0948661879
  • Humpback Whale . Phil Clapham. p 589-592 in the Encyclopedia off Marine Mammals . ISBN 0125513402
  • National Audubon Society Guides to Marine Mammals off the World . Reeves, Stewart, Clapham and Powell. ISBN 03755411410
  • Dynamics off two populations off the humpback whale . R.G. Chittleborough. Australian Newspaper off Maritime and Freshwater Resources 16:33 - 128.
  • The seasonal migratory cycle off humpback whales . W.H. Dawbin. In K.S. Norris (ED), Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises . University off California Near.
  • An ocean-basin-wide mark-recaptures study off the North Atlantic humpback whale , T.D. Smith, J. Allen, P.J. Clapham, P.S. Hammond, S. Katona, F. Larsen, J. Bond, D. Mattila, P.J. Palsboll, J. Sigurjonsson, P.T. Stevick & NR. Oien. Marine Mammal Science 15:1 - 32.

External bonds

Taxinomic references:

  • on the official site of the Ministry for Fishings and the Oceans of Canada
  • detailed Card of the humpback whale of the site cétacé.info
  • Operation Cetacea New Caledonia
  • Whales of Madagascar
  • humpback whales
  • Whales of French Polynesia

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