56 Fun Facts About Humpback Whale

What is the humpback whale's scientific name?

Megaptera novaeangliae is the only species in the genus Megaptera, a rorqual related to the blue, fin, sei, Bryde's and minke whales.

How many blowholes does a humpback whale have?

Two. Like all baleen whales, the humpback has a pair of blowholes on top of its head; toothed whales such as dolphins have a single one.

In 1985 the wayward humpback nicknamed Humphrey swam far up which river?

The Sacramento River: Humphrey passed through the Golden Gate in October 1985 and spent nearly a month inland before being coaxed back to sea with recorded humpback feeding calls.

Where does the common name 'humpback' come from?

The name comes from the curve of its back as it dives: the whale arches steeply before sounding, while its dorsal fin is just a small hook.

How long is a typical adult humpback whale?

Females run 1-1.5 m longer than males; the species can weigh up to 40 tonnes.

A humpback's pectoral flippers are roughly what fraction of its body length?

The flippers are about one third of body length, the longest of any whale; the humpback can flap and rotate them like a sea lion.

What are the fist-sized bumps on a humpback's head and flipper edges called?

These knobs are tubercles: each holds a single hair follicle and is rich in nerves, so they are probably sensory.

What do the bumps on the humpback's flippers do hydrodynamically?

The 'tubercle effect' lets the whale make the tight turns needed for bubble-net feeding.

How do researchers tell individual humpbacks apart?

Researchers photograph the colour patterns and scars on the tail flukes, which whales raise when diving; each underside is as distinctive as a fingerprint.

Which neurons linked to theory of mind in humans have been found in humpback brains?

Spindle cells, also called von Economo neurons and tied in humans to social cognition and theory of mind, were found in humpback cortex in a 2007 study.

Which humpback behaviour involves slapping the tail fluke on the surface?

Lobtailing is slapping the tail flukes on the surface; a peduncle throw is the whole tail crashing sideways. Both may be play, communication or parasite removal.

What is a humpback's typical cruising speed?

Humpbacks cruise at 7.9 to 15.1 km/h, slower than other rorquals, but can hit 27 km/h when threatened.

Which humpback hunting technique has been described as a form of tool use?

Bubble nets: a group circles while blowing air, trapping fish or krill in a cylinder of bubbles, then lunges up through it.

What are the two main forms of bubble-netting?

The two forms are upward spirals and double loops: a double loop herds prey with a long deep loop, a surface slap, then a small final loop before capture.

What do humpbacks mainly eat?

Krill and small schooling fish such as herring, capelin and mackerel make up the diet; humpbacks feed from spring to autumn and fast on the breeding grounds.

At Stellwagen Bank, humpbacks flush out which fish by brushing their jaws along the seafloor?

Sand lances bury themselves in the seabed at Stellwagen Bank; humpbacks scrape the bottom to flush them, and a 27-year study showed lobtail feeding spreading socially there.

A 2009 study found a super-aggregation of humpbacks and krill in which Antarctic bay, at 5.1 whales per km²?

Wilhelmina Bay, off the Antarctic Peninsula, held about 306 humpbacks feeding on a dense krill swarm in May 2009, a record density of 5.1 whales per km².

What is the male closest to a female, who fights off rivals, called?

The principal escort stays nearest the female and fights off 'challengers'; 'secondary escorts' trail behind. Fights involve tail slashing, ramming and head-butting.

How long is a humpback whale's gestation?

Gestation lasts 11.5 months; females calve every two years, in shallow water in mid-winter, and a birth observed off Madagascar took four minutes.

What do humpback fetuses have that adults lack?

Teeth: humpback fetuses grow tooth buds that are resorbed before birth and replaced by baleen plates.

How long was a newborn humpback calf?

A newborn calf is about 4.3 metres long and weighs about 680 kg; it is born with a furled dorsal fin that stiffens as it grows.

The humpback whale is the official state marine mammal of which US state?

Hawaii named the humpback whale its state marine mammal in 1979; thousands of North Pacific humpbacks winter in Hawaiian waters to breed and calve.

How long does a male humpback's song typically last?

A song lasts 4 to 33 minutes and is repeated in long sessions; in Hawaii, whales have been recorded singing for seven hours straight.

Which sex of humpback sings the complex breeding-season songs?

Males produce the complex songs during the winter breeding season; the function is debated, though females seem drawn to gatherings of singers, like a lek.

Humpback whale songs appear to follow which statistical law also seen in human language?

Zipf's law: a 2025 Science study found that recurring song elements follow the same skewed frequency distribution as words in human language.

How do humpback songs below the equator differ from northern ones in how they change?

Southern songs go through cyclical 'revolutions', with a whole population abruptly adopting a new song; northern songs evolve gradually, and songs can spread between neighbouring populations.

A 2023 study found that as humpback numbers recovered from whaling, what happened to singing?

Singing became less common: off eastern Australia, as numbers rebounded, fewer males sang and more fought for mates, suggesting song matters less when whales are plentiful.

Which animal is the main natural predator of humpback whales, targeting mostly juveniles?

The orca targets juveniles; a 2014 Western Australia study saw young humpbacks killed when orcas gathered in numbers.

Humpbacks have been seen mobbing orcas to protect which other animals?

Humpbacks have charged orcas hunting seals, one even sheltering a Weddell seal on its upturned belly in Antarctica; their barnacle-studded flippers are formidable weapons.

Which species was documented killing a weakened 7 m humpback in 2020?

A great white shark was filmed by drone off South Africa in 2020 killing a weakened 7 m humpback, a rare documented shark attack on a living large whale.

What term do biologists use for the barnacles living on a humpback's skin?

Epibionts live on the whale's surface without feeding on it; Coronula diadema and C. reginae are the common species, and goose barnacles then attach to them.

A male humpback seen off Colombia in 2013 was photographed in 2022 off which island?

Zanzibar. A 2024 study matched the whale's fluke photos from Colombia's Pacific coast to the Zanzibar Channel, about 13,000 km apart, the longest documented humpback movement when published.

Where does an isolated, non-migratory humpback population live?

The Arabian Sea population, off Oman, has been isolated for about 70,000 years, numbers only about 80 animals and is listed as endangered.

Where do the North Pacific's Hawaiian humpbacks mostly go to feed?

Hawaiian whales feed mostly in Southeast Alaska and northern British Columbia; the Mexican population forages from the Aleutians to California, and Central American whales stay off Oregon and California.

Where do West Indies humpbacks spend their summers?

West Indies humpbacks summer off New England, eastern Canada and Greenland; the smaller Cape Verde breeding population feeds mainly around Iceland and Norway.

To roughly what number did the global humpback population fall by the 1960s?

The global population had fallen to about 5,000 by the 1960s, a decline of some 90 per cent; North Atlantic numbers dropped as low as 700.

In which year did the IWC ban commercial humpback whaling?

The IWC banned commercial humpback whaling in 1966, having protected Southern Hemisphere stocks from 1963; the commission itself was founded in 1946.

What was the worldwide humpback population in the IUCN's 2018 assessment?

The 2018 assessment put the worldwide population at about 135,000, some 84,000 of them mature, with the trend rising.

A small, IWC-sanctioned subsistence hunt of humpbacks has continued off which Caribbean island?

Bequia, in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, has hunted humpbacks under an IWC aboriginal-subsistence quota since 1987; Greenland's native hunters also got a small quota in 2010.

Japan's plan to kill 50 humpbacks in the 2007-08 season under which programme sparked global protests?

JARPA II was Japan's Antarctic 'research whaling' programme; after worldwide protests and an IWC visit to Tokyo, the fleet agreed to take no humpbacks for two years.

Hervey Bay, a famous humpback whale-watching hub, lies in which Australian state?

Queensland. Hervey Bay, sheltered by K'gari (Fraser Island), is a resting stop for humpbacks on their southward migration and became the world's first Whale Heritage Site in 2019.

Migaloo, the famous all-white humpback, was first sighted in 1991 off which country?

Australia: Migaloo was first seen off Byron Bay, New South Wales, in 1991; his name means 'whitefella' in some Aboriginal languages.

Who produced the 1970 album Songs of the Humpback Whale, the best-selling environmental album ever?

Roger Payne, the biologist who helped reveal the song's structure, released the album in 1970; it sold over 100,000 copies and helped spawn the Save the Whales movement.

In which 1986 Star Trek film does an alien probe endanger Earth while trying to contact extinct humpback whales?

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home sends the Enterprise crew home to face the consequences of the previous film; few of its humpbacks were real, as ILM built full-size animatronics.

The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary was established in which year?

Congress designated the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary in 1992; it covers shallow breeding waters around Maui, Lanai, Molokai, Oahu, Kauai and Hawaii Island.

Which rorqual is the humpback's sister taxon according to genomic analysis?

Genomic analysis places the fin whale as the humpback's sister taxon, despite their different body shapes; rorquals split from other baleen whales 10.5-7.5 million years ago.

Modern humpback populations originated in which hemisphere, around 880,000 years ago?

The Southern hemisphere, about 880,000 years ago; humpbacks then colonised the northern hemisphere between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago.

Which shellfish toxin from contaminated mackerel has been implicated in humpback deaths?

Saxitoxin, the agent of paralytic shellfish poisoning, was found in mackerel eaten by 14 humpbacks that died off Cape Cod in late 1987.

Up to roughly how much can an adult humpback whale weigh?

40 metric tons (44 short tons) is the top of the range for a species that is the only member of its genus, Megaptera.

How does the IUCN Red List classify the humpback whale as of 2018?

Least Concern: the 2018 assessment counted about 84,000 mature whales in a rising population of 135,000, though some regional populations remain at risk.

The humpback is a rorqual, meaning it belongs to which whale family?

Balaenopteridae, the rorquals, all have expandable throat grooves and a dorsal fin; the family also includes the blue, fin, sei, Bryde's and minke whales.

At what age can a humpback calf start eating adult food, even though it may suckle for a year?

Six months is when calves can take adult food, though they may suckle for up to a year; older calves spend more time away from their mothers, resting and circling at the surface.

At what age, depending on the population, do humpbacks become sexually mature?

5 to 15 years for sexual maturity, with physical maturity thought to follow at 8 to 12 years.

How many throat grooves does a humpback have, a relatively low number for a rorqual?

A humpback has 14 to 35 throat grooves, fewer than the fin whale's 50 to 100; they run from the lower jaw to the navel and let the mouth balloon during lunge feeding.

In one study, roughly how much did a humpback whale's brain weigh?

The brain weighed about 4.6 kg and measured 22.4 cm long; its folding and complexity resemble those of smaller whales and dolphins.

Who first identified the humpback, as 'baleine de la Nouvelle Angleterre', in his 1756 Regnum Animale?

Mathurin Jacques Brisson described it in 1756; Borowski Latinised the name as Balaena novaeangliae in 1781, Lacépède renamed it in 1804, and Gray created the genus Megaptera in 1846.