Final Exam Flashcards
Why the ‘right’ whale?
- Near to shore
- Swim slowly
- Floated when died
- Large amounts of oil and baleen
Right whales
- 13-16m
- Girth is 60% of length
- 80 tons
- No dorsal fin
- Large round flippers
- V-shaped blow
- Large, wide flukes (40% of body length)
- Large head (1/4-1/3 body length)
- Severely arched jaw
- Very long, narrow baleen (6-10’)
- Feed on copepods
Identifying marks of right whales
Callosities
Types of right whales
Southern right whale
North Pacific right whale
North Atlantic right whale
Southern right whale
Summer: Southern Ocean
Winter (breeding): South America, Southern Africa, Australia & New Zealand
Population: 7000-8000 (7-8% increase/year)
Typical behaviours: breaching, sailing
North Pacific right whales
Sightings: Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk
Population: 100-300
World’s most endangered marine mammal
North Atlantic right whale
Temperate and subpolar waters: Western North Atlantic (Gulf of Maine and off NS to Florida and Georgia) & Eastern North Atlantic (Spain, Norway, Iceland to off West Africa)
Behaviours: Breaching, Surface Active Groups
Population: 450-500 (0.08% increase/year)
Why are right whales considered the ‘urban whale”?
Recovery hindered by diminished reproduction and high mortality
Right whale reproductive challenges
- increasing inter-calf interval
- decrease calves/year
- 25% mature females, no calf
- age at first calving increasing
Main causes of death in right whales
- Vessel strikes
2. Entanglement in commercial fishing gear
Vessel strikes (right whales)
- lethal and non-lethal impacts
- large vessel strikes are normally always fatal and instantaneous
- float when they die
Entanglement in fishing gear (right whales)
- 70% have entanglement scares
- 15% observed with new scars/year
- causes them to sink when they die
- slow, very painful death
Right whale recovery in Canada
- Recovery team created in 1996
- Listed under SARA in 2005
- Strategy published in 2009
- Action plan was expected in 2012
- Amended shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy
Sperm whale facts
- largest toothed whale
- greatest cetacean sexual dimorphism (11m/10t-17m/30t)
- longest intestine on earth
- Spermaceti organ
- Asymmetric
- largest brain on earth
Sperm whale life history
- calving rate: 0.2-0.25/yr
- female maturity: 10yr
- male maturity: 15yr (sexual), 27yr (social)
- gestation: 15 months
- lactation: 4yr
Sperm whale habitat
- almost all waters deeper than 1000m
- correlated with productivity
Sperm whale food
Midwater and deepwater squid and fish
Sperm whale predators
- Orcas
- Large sharks
- Humans
Sperm whale social structure
- Social unit (10 individuals)
- Group (20 individuals of 2 units)
- Coda clans (10,000s of females)
Sperm whale community (female)
- move and travel together
- babysit others’ calves
- suckle others’ calves
- defend communally
- heroism when attacked
Sperm whale codas
- patterned series of clicks
- used for communication
- made mainly by adult females
- different repertoires
- example of culture
Male sperm whale
- leave group at 6
- continue growing until 35-60
- higher latitude as he gets older
- loose bachelor groups
- returns to breed (27yr)
- roving breeding
Beaked whale facts
- 21 species in 6 genera
- least known of all mammalian species
3. 5-12m - beak
- pair of throat grooves
- prey on squid and fish
- flipper pockets
- very elusive (most)
- live offshore (many)
- deep-divers
- 2 teeth at tip of lower jaw (most males)
Types of beaked whales
- Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius)
- Sheperd’s beaked whale (Tasmacetus)
- Longman’s beaked whale (Indopacetus)
- Arnoux’s beaked whale (Berardius)
- Baird’s beaked whale (Berardius)
- Gervais’ beaked whale (Mesoplodon)
- Sowerby’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon)
- Densebeaked whale (Mesoplodon)
- Hector’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon)
- Andrews’ beaked whale (Mesoplodon)
- Strap-tooth whale (Mesoplodon)
- Grays beaked whale (Mesoplodon)
- Perrin’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon)
- Bottlnose whale (Hyperoodon)
