Northern Atlantic right whale
| Northern Atlantic right whale | ||||||||||||
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Northern Atlantic right whale with calf |
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| Eubalaena glacialis | ||||||||||||
| ( Müller , 1776) |
The northern right whale ( Eubalaena glacialis ) is a species of right whale up to 18 m in size that is widespread in the North Atlantic .
features
Northern Atlantic right whales are usually 13 to 16 m tall; the scientifically proven maximum length is 18 m, supposedly 21 m should also be possible. The weight of the whale is 100 tons. As with all right whales, a dorsal fin is missing. The color is uniformly black. There is an extreme parasite infestation by barnacles , wall lice and other crustaceans , which look like extensive white spots from a distance. This growth is particularly dense on the forehead, where the parasites form a real white "cap".
There are 300 beards on each side of the mouth. Two blowholes make a V-shaped blower . The blubber (bacon from which the oil can be boiled) makes up 40% of the body weight; no other whale has such a high proportion of bubbles.
distribution
Northern Atlantic right whales live in subpolar regions in summer and in temperate latitudes in winter. In the eastern part of the Atlantic, the northern right whale has been completely eradicated. This whale was previously found near Iceland in summer and in the Bay of Biscay in winter . This is where the German name "Biskayawal" comes from, which is used from time to time. The west Atlantic populations are off the coast of New England in summer and in the Gulf of Mexico and east of Florida in winter .
In ancient times, the northern Atlantic right whale also lived in the Strait of Gibraltar and in the western Mediterranean.
Way of life
Northern right whales are very slow swimming whales that travel at around 8 km / h. Like all baleen whales sift the food with their beards ; copepods mainly get caught in it, but also small fish. Northern right whales used to gather in large groups of a hundred individual animals and more for migrations; because of the extreme rarity of this species, this is no longer possible today.
Whaling and Protection
Because northern right whales live near the coast, they were among the first whales to be captured by whalers . Tens of thousands of northern right whales were killed as early as the 16th century. After that, they had become so rare in the Eastern Atlantic that European whalers turned to bowhead whales . In the colonies of New England, however, it was soon discovered that thousands of northern right whales were off the coasts during the summer. In the 17th and 18th centuries, these stocks were almost wiped out. Only then was the northern Pacific right discovered , and between 1805 and 1914 this was also almost wiped out.
The original population of the northern caper is estimated at 100,000 animals, in 2010 around 500 animals were still alive, after there were only a little more than 300 animals in the 1990s. Unlike other whales, this species has not really been able to recover even after whaling ended. Between 1990 and 2010 the population grew by about 2.8% per year. The slight recovery is probably due to the fact that Calanus finmarchicus , a copepod , relocated to the summer areas. The females in particular feed on them. In 2015, larger groups of northern right capers, around 40 to 45 animals, were spotted for the first time near Prince Edward Island , a total of 100 whales of this species that were also sighted around Newfoundland and off the coast of Nova Scotia this summer . With this northward movement, they end up in one of the main shipping routes in North America, but also in areas with significantly more fishing nets, in which they can get caught and choke. As a result, a large number of northern right whales (18 animals / four percent of the total population) perished for the first time between April 2017 and January 2018, while fewer offspring were found at the same time.
In July 2020 the IUCN classified the northern right whale as " critically endangered " . The East Atlantic stocks that used to migrate between Iceland and France have disappeared; Occasionally appearing northern right whales are probably only stray individual animals from the western Atlantic.
Taxonomy
The northern right whale is sometimes listed in the genus Balaena or Eubalaena together with the bowhead whale , the Pacific northern right whale and the southern right whale . Southern right whale, Atlantic right whale, and northern Pacific right whale used to be considered one species, but DNA research has shown that they are three different species.
literature
- Mark Carwardine : Whales and Dolphins. Delius Klasing et al., Bielefeld et al. 1996, ISBN 3-7688-0949-8 (high quality guide).
- Ralf Kiefner: whales and dolphins worldwide. Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean, Arctic, Antarctica. Jahr-Top-Special-Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-86132-620-5 (guide of the magazine diving , very detailed).
- Jochen Niethammer, Franz Krapp (Hrsg.): Handbook of mammals in Europe. Volume 6: Marine Mammals. Part 1: Daniel Robineau, Raymond Duguy, Milan Klima (eds.): Wale and Delphine. Part 1 A: Introduction, Monodontidae, Phocoenidae, Delphinidae. AULA-Verlag, Wiebelsheim 1994, ISBN 3-89104-559-X (very detailed specialist book).
- Randall R. Reeves, Brent S. Stewart, Phillip J. Clapham, James A. Powell: Sea Mammals of the World. A Complete Guide to Whales, Dolphins, Seals, Sea Lions and Sea Cows. Black, London 2002, ISBN 0-7136-6334-0 (guide with numerous pictures).
- Maurizio Würtz, Nadia Repetto: Dolphins and Whales. White Star Guides et al., Vercelli et al. 2003, ISBN 88-8095-943-3 (identification book).
Web links
- Eubalaena glacialis inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: Reilly, SB, Bannister, JL, Best, PB, Brown, M., Brownell Jr., RL, Butterworth, DS, Clapham, PJ, Cooke, J., Donovan, G., Urbán, J. & Zerbini , AN, 2008. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
Individual evidence
- ^ Ana SL Rodrigues, Anne Charpentier, Dario Bernal-Casasola u. Armelle Gardeisen: Forgotten Mediterranean calving grounds of gray and North Atlantic right whales: evidence from Roman archaeological records. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285 (1882): 20180961 July 2018, DOI: 10.1098 / rspb.2018.0961
- ↑ NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE (Eubalaena glacialis): Western Atlantic Stock ( Memento from July 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Eric Stokstad: Endangered right whales are dying in record numbers off Canada, raising alarm , in: Science, August 24. 2017.
- ^ Kerstin Viering: Northern right whale in need. Background report at Spektrum.de from August 13, 2018.
- ↑ Almost a third of lemurs and North Atlantic Right Whale now Critically Endangered - IUCN Red List , IUCN press release of July 9, 2020, accessed July 11, 2020.