Right whale is a large baleen whale with a huge head covered in raised patches of roughened skin. These patches are called callosities. Each individual has a unique callosity pattern, by which it can be identified. The callosities are usually infested with small animals known as cyamids, often called whale lice. Like all baleen whales, right whales strain their food from the water using specialized plates in the mouth called baleen. There are three species (kinds) of right whale: one in the northern Pacific Ocean, one in the northern Atlantic Ocean, and one in the Southern Hemisphere.
Right whales are black in color and may have white patches on their undersides. The upper jaw is strongly arched. Right whales have paddle-shaped flippers and a smooth, broad back that lacks a dorsal (back) fin. Females may reach 60 feet (18 meters) in length and are larger than males. Right whales can weigh up to 100 tons (90 metric tons).
Right whales feed by swimming through a mass of shrimplike animals known as copepods and krill with their mouths open. They strain the water through their long, narrow, plates of baleen. These plates may measure up to 10 feet (3 meters) in length. The copepods and krill become entangled in the fine bristles of the baleen plates and are then swallowed. Right whales live alone or in pairs of a mother and calf. They also form temporary social groups of up to 30 individuals. Observers often spot right whales leaping above the water’s surface or slapping their flippers and flukes (tail fins) on the surface.
Right whales migrate between summer feeding grounds in the polar regions and warmer winter breeding grounds. Right whales are rich in oil and easy to catch, because they are slow and live near the coast. They were heavily hunted from the 1500’s into the 1900’s. Laws now protect right whales from commercial whaling. But right whales remain among the most highly endangered mammals. Major threats to right whales include collisions with ships and accidental entanglement in fishing gear.
