Humpback Whale

Description:

This is a humpback calf about 8-9 months old. Mostly black with white pectoral flippers and small amount of white on tail. Pleated underside. Double blowhole. Dorsal fin approxiamately midway on back. Baleen whale with several rows of baleen to allow filtering of food. Large, deep lower jaw. Eye is small and is about the size of a grapefruit. "Stove bolts" (enlarged hair follicles with one or two hairs growing from each) on head top. Full grown humpacks are 40-50' in length and weigh up to 30 tons.

Habitat:

Ocean. Stellwagen National Marine Sanctuary/Gulf of Maine approximately late March/early April through October. The humpbacks are in the Gulf of Maine during the summer months to eat and only to eat. Humpbacks migrate to the Dominican Repbulic approximately October and spend the winter months in Silver Banks for courtship, breeding and birthing. They leave Silver Banks sometime around March and migrate back north to the Gulf of Maine.

Notes:

This young calf is the calf of a whale named Boomerang. He was born in Silver Banks and migrated with Boomerang back to New England's Gulf of Maine. Boomerang has spent the summer moving around the feeding grounds of Stellwagen National Marine Sanctuary showing the calf where to search for food. The calf has spent the summer learning to be a humpback. In August he was still nursing so while Boomerang had been busy diving to look for food, he amused himself (and us) by trying out some whale behaviors. This shot of his face was taken as he attempted to breach.