If you have ever seen a humpback whale in its natural habitat then you will know it is a magnificent thing to see. The sheer size is daunting and can often dwarf observation boats, it can make a human-being feel small and inconsequential. Just to reinforce how magnificent these creatures are, we have put some amazing facts together about them.
Intelligence
Humpback whales are both smart and vocal about it. And each pod communicates in their own local dialect, and has their own particular song. Oddly enough, whales are not born knowing how to sing, their mothers pass the skill on through teaching. It is very much an all-male choir in the fact that only the males sing.
Whales are Loud
Only if you go out to sea and study humpback whales in their environment can you get an idea just how loud these creatures actually are. Their songs can be heard over thirty kilometers and each song can last as long as half an hour. They then are prone to repeating the same song over and over again.
Food for Thought
The favorite diet of humpback whales is krill, which is a tiny sea animal that is almost like a shrimp. Because of their sheer size a lot of krill have to be devoured a day to keep a humpback functioning properly, almost one and a half tons each day.
Do I Look Big in This?
When it comes to humpback whales, size does matter, and it is the female who wins out. The females of the species are longer than the males, and a female can grow up to fifty feet long. The male can even be up to ten feet shorter.
The Giant Facts
Everything about a humpback whale’s dimensions is on the grand scale, and their flippers can be almost a third of their size, giving these creatures immense propulsion. Its tail can also be twenty feet long, enough to cause a stir when wagged. All this contributes to a great amount of weight, and an adult whale can grow up to forty tons, that is almost the same as twenty standard cars.
True Globe-Trotters
Humpback whales are migratory animals, that is why you can see them in the warm waters of the Caribbean or the icy cold of Alaska. They can migrate from the Pacific, Arctic, and Atlantic Oceans too.
The Numbers
The sad fact about these amazing creatures is that it is estimated that their numbers have dwindled to under forty thousand. They are not the fastest creatures in the world so were targets for predatory humans, hunting for sport and food. Hunting humpbacks has now been banned, although some countries regularly ignore this law and still hunt them. The final numbers are rather grim, the existing population of these whales is thought to be just a third of the original population. And they are really close to being put on the endangered list, which would be a real shame for humanity as it has not done enough to protect them.
