Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Cetacea > Monodontidae > Delphinapterus > Delphinapterus leucas

Delphinapterus leucas (Beluga; white whale)

Synonyms:
Language: French

Wikipedia Abstract

The beluga whale or white whale (Delphinapterus leucas) is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, and the only member of the genus Delphinapterus. This marine mammal is commonly referred to as the beluga, melonhead, or sea canary due to its high-pitched twitter. Belugas are one of the most commonly kept cetaceans in captivity and are housed in aquariums, dolphinariums, and wildlife parks in North America, Europe, and Asia. They are popular with the public due to their colour and expression.
View Wikipedia Record: Delphinapterus leucas

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
10
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
47
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 21.32
EDGE Score: 3.8
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Gestation [2]  1 year 1 month
Litter Size [2]  1
Litters / Year [2]  0.3
Maximum Longevity [2]  40 years
Snout to Vent Length [4]  14.498 feet (442 cm)
Water Biome [1]  Pelagic, Benthic, Coastal, Brackish Water
Weaning [2]  1 year 10 months
Adult Weight [2]  1.576 tons (1,430.00 kg)
Birth Weight [2]  145.506 lbs (66.00 kg)
Diet [3]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Piscivore
Diet - Fish [3]  60 %
Diet - Invertibrates [3]  40 %
Forages - Marine [3]  100 %
Female Maturity [2]  4 years 6 months
Male Maturity [2]  6 years 3 months

Protected Areas

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Homo sapiens (man)[5]
Odobenus rosmarus (Walrus)[7]
Orcinus orca (Killer Whale)[7]
Ursus maritimus (Polar Bear)[9]

Providers

Parasite of 
Trichinella spiralis (pork worm)[5]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Audio

Play / PauseVolume
Provided by Center for Biological Diversity via Myxer Author: Jim Nollman

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 2de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 3Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6Food Web Relationships of Northern Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca : a Synthesis of the Available Knowledge, Charles A. Simenstad, Bruce S. Miller, Carl F. Nyblade, Kathleen Thornburgh, and Lewis J. Bledsoe, EPA-600 7-29-259 September 1979
♦ 7Delphinapterus leucas, Barbara E. Stewart and Robert E. A. Stewart, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 336, pp. 1-8 (1989)
♦ 8The role of capelin (Mallotus villosus) in the foodweb of the Barents Sea, A. V. Dolgov, ICES Journal of Marine Science, 59: 1034–1045. 2002
♦ 9Diet composition of polar bears in Svalbard and the western Barents Sea, Andrew E. Derocher, Øystein Wiig, Magnus Andersen, Polar Biol (2002) 25: 448–452
♦ 10Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Audio software provided by SoundManager 2
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0