Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Cetacea > Balaenopteridae > Megaptera > Megaptera novaeangliae

Megaptera novaeangliae (Humpback Whale)

Synonyms:
Language: French; Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from 12–16 m (39–52 ft) and weigh about 36,000 kg (79,000 lb). The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is known for breaching and other distinctive surface behaviors, making it popular with whale watchers. Males produce a complex song lasting 10 to 20 minutes, which they repeat for hours at a time. Its purpose is not clear, though it may have a role in mating.
View Wikipedia Record: Megaptera novaeangliae

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
11
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
37
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 22.63
EDGE Score: 3.16
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Gestation [2]  11 months 12 days
Litter Size [2]  1
Litters / Year [2]  1
Maximum Longevity [2]  95 years
Migration [1]  Interoceanic
Snout to Vent Length [4]  46 feet (1403 cm)
Speed [5]  16.777 MPH (7.5 m/s)
Water Biome [1]  Benthic, Coastal
Weaning [2]  7 months 26 days
Adult Weight [2]  33.07 tons (30,000.00 kg)
Birth Weight [2]  1.488 tons (1,350.00 kg)
Diet [3]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Piscivore
Diet - Fish [3]  20 %
Diet - Invertibrates [3]  80 %
Forages - Marine [3]  100 %
Female Maturity [2]  4 years 6 months
Male Maturity [2]  4 years 6 months

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Emblem of

Bermuda

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

+ Click for partial list (55)Full list (161)

Predators

Homo sapiens (man)[6]
Orcinus orca (Killer Whale)[6]

Providers

Parasite of 
Trichinella spiralis (pork worm)[6]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

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
♦ 5Wikipedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
♦ 6Jorrit 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.
♦ 7Food 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
♦ 8Who's Eating Who
♦ 9The role of capelin (Mallotus villosus) in the foodweb of the Barents Sea, A. V. Dolgov, ICES Journal of Marine Science, 59: 1034–1045. 2002
♦ 10Towards the trophic structure of the Bouvet Island marine ecosystem, U. Jacob, T. Brey, I. Fetzer, S. Kaehler, K. Mintenbeck, K. Dunton, K. Beyer, U. Struck , E.A. Pakhomov and W.E. Arntz, Polar Biology, 29 (2). pp. 106-113 (2006)
♦ 11Szoboszlai AI, Thayer JA, Wood SA, Sydeman WJ, Koehn LE (2015) Forage species in predator diets: synthesis of data from the California Current. Ecological Informatics 29(1): 45-56. Szoboszlai AI, Thayer JA, Wood SA, Sydeman WJ, Koehn LE (2015) Data from: Forage species in predator diets: synthesis of data from the California Current. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 12Gibson, 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
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