Hobbies And Interests
Rorquals
The Sei whale can grow to 62 feet long. It's found in the north Atlantic to the Arctic circle. It's a dark steel gray on top with a grayish white belly. The Sei is a rorqual whale, which means it has ventral grooves form its throat to its belly that expand when it takes in water and food. It strains the water out from brushy plates in its mouth called baleen. The blue whale is the largest animal on earth; it can grow to be 98 feet long. It's also found in the north Atlantic from the Arctic circle southward. The fin whale grows to 79 feet long and is brownish or blue, black and white underneath. It may have a gray white chevron behind its head. It has a V-shaped snout with a small dorsal ridge down the center and paired blowholes. It can be found inshore or offshore.
The Humpback
The humpback is found in the north Atlantic from northern Iceland to west Greenland. It grows to 58 feet long. It's more robust than other rorquals but because of the ventral grooves is grouped with them. It has a dark body, and its flippers and the underside of its flukes are white.
Right Whales
The bowhead is a right whale. It has baleen but lacks the rorqual's ventral grooves. It grows to 65 feet and is a robust whale. The arch on the top of its head and back give it its name. It's black with an uneven white chin and its baleen plates are gray and black. It's found along the pack ice in the Atlantic off Greenland. The right whale grows to about 53 feet long and is a fat, brown or almost black whale mottled with white. It can be found in the Atlantic to Iceland and down to Florida. It's called the right whale because whalers thought it was the "right" whale to hunt. It was slow, easy to kill, didn't sink when it was dead, and yielded oil and whalebone for corsets.
Beluga Whale
The white whale, also called the beluga, can be found in the north Atlantic from the Arctic circle to New Jersey. It's a fat white whale with a "neck." It's born brown but gradually lightens to white. The head is small and the beak is short. Beluga whales travel in groups of hundreds or thousands.