Whale Tales and Glitter No. 3: Meet the Humpbacks!

ID: A Humpback whale, gray body with long, white pectoral fins, swimming in light blue water.

Humpback whales, called Megaptera novaeangliae or Great wing of New England, are not the largest of the whales, that title goes to the Blues who are both the current and all time champions of size for animals on earth , but they are among the most curious. They seem to want to know what were doing in our boats out on their water, they’ve been known to ‘rescue’ humans from sharks, and get between Orcas and other marine mammals. They also sing songs lasting up to 30 minutes, change year after year, and are shared among Humpback whale populations. That song is part of what made them the poster kids for the Save the Whale movement and helped bring most industrial whale hunting to an end.

Adult Humpbacks average 50 feet and 45 tonnes in weight, making them the sixth largest of the great whales. Their skin is generally dark gray to black on top, so from the surface they look like a shadow, or an even a log floating in the water. They’re not easy to see at a distance, with one exception - their blow spout. As a Humpback comes to the surface they let out a burst of air, up to fifteen feet high, through their blowhole. The blowhole is on the top of the whales head, near the front, and is to whales what nostrils are to land mammals. Also, if you’re close enough, you’ll get a whiff of sea and fish. It’s an acquired smell, trust me.

ID: The dark gray nose of a Humpback rising from green-gray water, with blow spout of white mist above its head. Small bumps, the same dark color as the skin, are seen on the nose.

ID: The dark gray top of a Humpback's head with the blowhole showing just above the green-gray water. Small bumps, the same dark color as the skin, are seen on the nose.

In the two photos above you can also see some bumps around the chin and along the top of the whale’s head. These are call tubercles and each one has a hair at its center, which is part of why they are classified as mammals. Why do they have the bumps and why is there a hair there? We don’t really know, but the bumpy nature of their heads adds to their distinctiveness.

If you’re out whale watching, after the blow, the next sign you’re looking for is the shape of the whale’s dorsal fin. The dorsal fin rises from the back or “top” of the whale. It can be anything from nearly non-existent in Belugas, to 6 feet tall, and solid black in Orcas. For Humpbacks, the dorsal fin is small, triangular in shape, and sits atop the distinctive hump that gives them their common name. 

ID: A Humpback rests at the surface, its dorsal fin and hump visible on its back. The whale is surrounded by sea lions and a few birds.

If you’re lucky enough to meet a Humpback that likes to explore boats, sometimes referred to as “mugging”, then you’re in for a treat. The whale may rise straight up out of the water until its eye is above the waterline in a behavior called a Spy Hop. Like other whales, Humpbacks can see both above and below the water, so they really are looking at us and our metal machine.

ID: A Humpback hovers in an upright with the top of its head out of the water. There is another whale just behind the first. They are both surrounded by sea lions and birds.

Depending on the position of the whale while it’s raising its head out of the water, you might be able to see the underside of its chin, which is often a mix of dark gray and white, though color patterns vary among population and locations. Many Humpback acquire collections of barnacles, which form the white/tan build up under its chin. Underneath that are lines which start near the chin and run down toward their abdomens. These lines, also called rorquals, are pleats that open when the whale feeds. As the whale fills their mouth with gallons of fish and water, the pleats spread wide to give them room to hold the volume of water they’ve gulped. Then, as the whale pushes the water out, the rorquals fold back down against the whale’s body.

ID: The head of a dark gray Humpback rises from the water. It’s ventral pleats visible. and spreading down from its chin. Tan barnacles are clustered at points along the pleats. White water swirls around the whale as is flows out from its partially open mouth. 

Humpbacks are filter feeders which means that they strain their food from the water. Instead of teeth, they have plates of keratin fibers that hang from their upper jaw, like rows of bristle brushes, which they used to trap and filter out the fish they want from the water around them. These plates are called baleen and are what distinguishes some cetaceans from their toothed cousins.

ID: A nearly black Humpback hoovers at the surface with it's jaws open, dark baleen plates visible on its upper jaw and dark tubercles on its head.

Another amazing behavior is a breach - when a whale hurls itself, either partially, or on rare occasions, entirely, out of the water. There are a lot of theories about why they do this. Some beehive it is a form of communication, since sound of their impact travels a long way through water, others suggest it part of courtship displays or battles for dominance during mating season. And sometimes its a youngster learning and having fun.

You can watch an fantastic video of two Humpbacks breaching here.

ID: A humpback falling onto its back to the water after a breach. Pale gray/white pleats are visible on its stomach as are tan barnacles on its chin and throat. One pectoral fin, mostly white, is lifted in the air.

One of the most distinctive things about Humpbacks whales are their pectoral fins. In a Humpback the pectoral fins average fifteen feet, or one third of its body length. These long limbs are usually white with patches of gray, again, color varies from group to group. Pectoral fins are the “arms” of a whale, the bones having adapted over millennia for use in water instead. The trailing edge of a Humpback’s pectoral fin has a row of tubercles which allow the whale a great deal of control as they turn and move through the water. The fins’ size and weight also makes them powerful weapons, along with its large tail, when fighting off predators.

ID: A graphic split into four vertical panels showing 4 whales and drawings of their corresponding pectoral fin bones. From R to L the whales are Killer Whale, Sperm Whale, North Atlantic Right Whale, Humpback Whale.

ID: A nearly black Humpback whale rising out of the water at an angle toward the right with one ,mostly white, pectoral fin waving.

The Humpback’s tail fluke has a few distinctive features as well. The top, or dorsal, side is mostly dark gray a notch at the center divide between the right and left fluke. The trailing edges will have a variety of markings, some of which will last through the whales life, while others will change, and new ones appear as the whale grows, encounters fishing gear, or predators who leave teeth marks, and circular barnacle scars. The pigmentation and markings on the under side of the tail fluke are distinctive enough to serve as Identification marks for individual whales. After 50 years of collecting photos, we now have multiple catalogs of ID photos for various Humpback populations around the world. There are a growing number of catalogues for other whales as well. As the technology to process and match the millions of photos being taken and uploaded has increased,so has our understanding of where and when these whales travel and even who they travel with year after year.

ID: A diagram of a Humpback whale tail flukes with labels added to identify: At the top: Fluke tips (pointing to the top point on each fluke). blow this is a line indicating The Trailing edge (at the top of the fluke), the notch (in middle), on the flukes is written: left fluke, right flukes, At the bottom right a line indicated the leading edge.

ID: Whale Fluke examples: Top L: Black base with white patches in the middle of each fluke, Top R: White with black edging and black circular scars, Bottom L: Patchy white with black edges and barnacles on the tips, Bottom R: Dark grey with white circular scars on both sides and white tooth marks on the corner of the right fluke.

And last, bur not least: one of the things Humpbacks are best known for: the fact that they sing. Like all mammals, Humpbacks communicate using different kinds of sounds for different purposes. Their songs are communication but they are also are much more distinctive and complex in form and, most likely, in purpose. The songs contain distinct phrases and sequences that repeat in specific sequences for up to 30 minutes at a time. Additionally the songs evolve from year to year and spread across populations with the changes appearing to flow from west to east through the oceans. You can listen to a 2018 recording of Humpbacks singing in Monterey Bay here. We also know that only males sing. And, until recently, it was believed that the songs were only sung in the breeding areas. We now have recordings that show at least some humpbacks also sing in the winter feeding grounds of Monterey Bay. There is a lot to unpack about Humpback whale songs, so I’ll do an entire issue about this topic down the line.

Today Humpbacks are thriving in nearly every ocean in the world. Their numbers have rebounded since the 1980s when the ban on commercial whaling took effect and Humpbacks around the world were listed at threatened or endangered depending on how bad the population numbers were at the time. In 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) took more than half the Humpback whale populations off the US List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. Estimates now put the worldwide Humpback whale population at around 200,000 individuals. Eco-tourism has brought more people into contact with Humpbacks, generating more photographs which in turn brings us more information about their lives and their migratory paths. Advancements in technology have allowed us to hear them singing night and day, with less harm to the whales, while generating more information for us to study. While most Humpbacks are no longer at risk of commercial hunting they, like the other whales, still face multiple human connected dangers. Ship strikes happen when a whale and a boat collide, often within shipping lands for major ports or when small craft get to close to whales in feeding or breeding grounds. Humpbacks are also at risk for entanglement in fishing gear such as crab or lobster pot lines and, like all of us, changes to the climate are impacting where their food travels, bringing whales closer to shore and human gear. Improvements are being explored for fishing gear that can benefit both the whale’s safety and the fisheries involved. Adjustments to ship speeds within areas known to have high whale traffic have been shown to lower the incidence of harm to the whale, and to the small boats involved. Actions taken to improve the climate will benefit all of us, the Humpbacks and other whales included. And like most tasks, the first step is getting to know the individuals involved.

Recommendations

“Humpback Whale, A First Field Guide to the Singing Giant of the Ocean” by Dr. Asha de Vos is part of Neon Squid Publishing’s Young Zoologist series. It is a delightful children’s book all about Humpbacks from one of the leading whale biologists of today. It made my inner kid and my adult self very happy! And there are several more in fun books in the series. Find links for the book at Neon Squid

In “Among Whales” by Roger Payne we get the story of whales from one of the people who loved them so much they became his life’s work. Best known by many for his research into Humpback whales and for publishing their songs, Dr. Payne also spent much of his life studying Right whales. This book explores many of the questions we all have about whales, and shares what Dr. Payne learned during his years of research. You can find physical copies at Abe Books and a scanned version at Internet Archive

Spotlight: Rachel Carson

ID: Black and white photo of a white woman with short, wavy hair on a rocky beach. She holds a jar filled with water and rocks.

Last year my family and I had the opportunity to attend the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute ‘s (MBAR) Open House in Moss Landing, CA. The event was set up beside their research boat The R/V Rachel Carson. I knew the name, but never thought of her in the context of marine science so I did a little digging and discovered that Rachel Carson, who most of us know as an Environmentalist and one of the first to sound the warning about the dangers of DDT, actually began her work in the oceans. 

ID: A large boat, white on top and black on the bottom. Three is a large bridge in the middle-top with technical gear and a mast full of electronics. Below the bridge in black letters is the ship’s name: RACHEL CARSON.

Born in 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania, USA, Rachel Carson studied biology at Chatham University (formerly Pennsylvania College for Women), graduating magna cum laude in 1929. She did a summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, and went on to study zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins, earning her master’s in zoology in 1932. Unfortunately, financial and personal hardships derailed her plans for a PhD.

Carson went on to worked as a copy writer for the US Bureau of Fisheries for their weekly radio program about aquatic life. This lead to her publishing articles about the marine life in her area. In 1936 she became a full time junior aquatic biologist for the Bureau.

Before ’Silent Spring’, the book that put Carson on the Environmental studies map, she wrote a trio of detailed and beautifully lyrical books about our oceans. ‘The Sea Around Us’, the second, and most successful of the three, was published by Oxford University Press in 1951, remaining on the NYT bestseller list for 86 weeks. It went on to win the National Book Award for Nonfiction and the John Burroughs Medal.

Carson’s interested in environmental issues began in the mid 40s but it wasn’t until the US government’s program to eradicate the gypsy month that she turned her focus to the issues surrounding DDT and other synthetic pesticides. This lead to the publication of ’Silent Spring’ in 1962 and helped bring about a nationwide ban on DDT ten years later.

While writing ’Silent Spring’ Carson found herself dealing with health issues including breast cancer. She passed away in April of 1964. A decade later she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

For more information visit Rachelcarson.org 

You can find a links to many of Rachel Carson’s US Fish and Wildlife publications in Wikipedia’s list of her works

And Glitter

As much as I love glitter, it’s also part of our ‘microplastics’ problem. Microplastics are tiny particles of plastic “less than five millimeters in length (or about the size of a pencil eraser) in size” (NOAA). These tiny particles start out as bottles, soap containers, flatware, cellphone cases, and packaging, others start as microfibers, made from synthetic fabrics, or micro-beads - which are an ingredient in some health and beauty products as well as the building blocks for most plastic items. Unfortunately, while plastic does eventually degrade, it does not go quickly or smoothly. Most plastic, including glitter, take hundreds of years to degrade, but first they break down into smaller and smaller pieces. Microplastics are now seen everywhere from small lakes to the deepest places in the ocean. They are also found in whales who plastic items thinking they are food, and in our bodies through the fish we eat. We don’t yet know what microplastics will do in the human body though there are a number of studies working to answer that question. Thankfully there are new alternatives to plastic along with more ways to recycle it (check out Ridwell for plastic bag recycling), and even an alternative to plastic glitter - more on that next time.

Thank you for joining me on this whale (of a) journey! If you’re new here, you can read previous issues at our Home Page and subscribe to join the journey.

Kate

Have questions? Topics you’d like me to cover? Let me know in the comments.