Whale Gray: Interesting Facts

What is a gray whale? This is an old resident of our planet, one of the oldest marine mammals. Scientists believe that he did not always plow the expanse of the ocean. Once upon a time this whale could live on land: modern species preserved signs of terrestrial existence. First of all, these are enlarged pelvic bones, the length of the cervical spine, a movable head and uncommon nasal bones for marine life.

The size and color of a beautiful marine mammal

In general, the gray whale is not the largest among its relatives. But still its size is impressive for many. Adult females grow to 17 m, and males are slightly smaller - their maximum size is 14.6 m. It is clear that with these sizes they weigh too little - from 15 to 35 tons.

It is interesting, but the color of the gray whale is not gray, but brown, patronizing, in the color of rocks and mud, because he is a shallower lover. But the spots on his skin are gray, hence the name.

The mentioned marks, by the way, cause a lot of anxiety to the animals. Because their origin is banal skin parasites, to which this species is more vulnerable than others. To get rid of them, whales have to show miracles of acrobatics and rub their bodies against the bottom, practically rolling from side to side.

Help the inhabitants of the sea to cope with this problem, some large seabirds - polar terns and seagulls-burgomasters. They arrange a feast for themselves, clearing the backs of the floating whales. If seagulls do not cope, sea giants have to swim in lagoons, where fresh water destroys annoying parasites.

Fish-whale from a fairy tale

In the tale of Peter Ershov, "The Little Humpbacked Horse", this inhabitant of the depths is represented as "miracle fish of the whale". But the writer's imagination is not a biological fact. The facts are, in fact, not only that the whale is not a monster, it is also not a fish.

If this is appropriate in relation to such giants, then we can say that they have a well-formed body, a curved back, a short head flattened from the sides. In place of the dorsal fin, only a small hump, short and wide dorsal fins. That is, the outwardly gray whale is quite similar to unreal fish sizes. So it is not surprising that these marine inhabitants, splashing in the shallows, misled our ancestors.

The huge size and external similarity impressed people so much that they did not immediately notice the main difference in the movement pattern. Fishes perform body movements in the horizontal plane, wagging their tail from side to side, and the tail and body of the animal move in the plane of the vertical. At one time, scientists surprised the public by declaring whales as mammals, and today every schoolboy knows this.

Albinoes in the ocean: is it true that they can be seen

It can not be said that the gray whale is a numerous species. And albinos among them - in general, such a great rarity, that between the last (2016) and the penultimate (2009) known case passed a whole 7 years.

Lucky biologists working on the Pacific coast of Mexico, they recorded the appearance of a female gray whale. It is assumed that this is a young mother.

Enemies and prospects of the marine mammal

Unfortunately, the number of these underwater giants is small. In the middle of the XIX century. Gray California whales were not uncommon, the American population was 30,000-4,000 heads. But by the beginning of the XX century it was already under threat of extinction.

The main enemy of gray whales is the killer whale. By the way, these are also whales, not so large, but they are toothy. Killer whales are exclusively organized predators and hunt only by an organized flock, otherwise they can not have such prey as a gray whale.

The Red Book is designed to save these animals from another enemy - a man. Because of their habitat in the coastal strip, they are vulnerable. A huge and very promising achievement in terms of their protection is the permission to extract from the coast of Chukotka to only a small indigenous people and only for their own needs.

Tireless travelers. How are they?

Gray whales are inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean, more precisely, of its northern part. Two populations are known: Okhotsk-Korean and Chukchi-Californian. The names of areals are double, because these mammals live in one place, then in another.

It is believed that the longest seasonal migration is made by the gray whale. Traveling to the breeding ground or foraging fat, these giants are very interesting orientated: vertically exposing the head from the water, they are inspected, determining their position relative to the shore along which they move. And they are moving, by the way, slowly, swimming only 10 km per hour, and in a dangerous situation accelerating to 18 km / h.

The first named population hibernates and multiplies in the Sea of Okhotsk near the shores of South Korea, and in the summer it is fattened on the northeastern shelf of Sakhalin. Unfortunately, this herd is small, about 250 individuals.

The second (American) population goes to the Gulf of California for the winter. There also appears offspring, but for the future the entire herd is fattened in the Bering and Chukchi seas, occasionally looking also at the East Siberian. This herd is already a whole 26,000 heads, and although it is slow, it is apparently recovering.

Gray whale: interesting facts about the marine life

And now a few interesting facts. With their help, you will once again see how interesting the gray whale is. Information for children and adults will be equally useful.

It turns out that gray whales, like people, are right-handed and left-handed. At first it's hard to believe, but if you think about it, it's absolutely logical: if they are mammals, then the dominant hemisphere of their brains can quite determine their so-called right and left hand. True, in the case of whales, it is learned by abrasions on the left or right side of the muzzle: where there are more of them, they dig the silt at the bottom of the sea, obtaining food. Left-handed is not very much, most are right-handed.

If there are any, whales can be fingerprinted. More precisely, "tail": the tail design of each animal is individual, like the papillary patterns of a person's fingers.

Only in one year the gray whale is able to swim up to 18,000 km.

And the most interesting is that only these mammals without harm can stay on the coast at low tide. They dry up, and then safely swim away at the time of the tide.

Conclusion

Now you know who the gray whale is. We hope that the information presented in the article was useful to you and helped to understand how defenseless and vulnerable this powerful animal is and how much it will lose our world if it loses gray whales.