Baird whale
| Baird whale | ||||||||||||
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Baird's whale ( Berardius bairdii ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Berardius bairdii | ||||||||||||
| Stejneger , 1883 |
The baird whale , also known as the baird beaked whale or northern black whale ( Berardius bairdii ), is a species of whale belonging to the beaked whale family (Ziphiidae). With a length of up to 13 meters, it is the largest species in its family. It was named after Spencer Fullerton Baird , an American zoologist.
distribution
Baird whales live in the northern Pacific above 30 ° north latitude , their range extends from the Sea of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea to the west coast of North America , where California is roughly the southernmost point of their occurrence. They are mainly found in regions remote from the coast with water depths of over 1000 meters.
description
Baird whales have a high, arched forehead that slopes steeply at the front, and a long snout. The lower jaw rises above the upper jaw, and two of the four teeth can be seen even when the mouth is closed. Their body is uniformly colored slate gray and only shows a few light spots on the underside. The flippers are small and round and sit relatively far in front of the body, the fin is triangular and, like all representatives of its genus, placed very far back. The rear edge of the broad fluke is almost straight and rarely notched. Females are slightly larger than males, they reach an average length of 11 meters (in exceptional cases up to 13 meters) and a weight of up to 15 tons, males are around 10 meters long. After the sperm whale, they are the largest toothed whales of all. Two forms are known of the Baird whale, a slate-gray and a smaller, black-colored. Comparisons of the mitochondrial DNA suggest that the black form could be another species of black whale.
Way of life
In summer, Baird whales stay in warmer seas (for example in Japan and California), in order to migrate northwards towards the Bering Sea in winter. These migrations are likely to be related to those of octopus, their main food. Baird whales live in schools of 6 to 30, sometimes up to 50 animals, led by a male. They are good and persistent divers who reach depths of 1000 to 3000 meters and dive lengths of up to 70 minutes. The main diet of these whales consists of bottom-dwelling fish , octopus, and crustaceans .
Reproduction
Mating takes place in midsummer; after a gestation period of around 17 months, the female gives birth to a single calf that is 4.5 meters long at birth. The young animals reach sexual maturity with a length of 9.5 to 10 meters. The life expectancy of these animals is estimated at 70 years.
Whaling and Population Development
In the 20th century, this species of whale was primarily hunted by the Japanese and, to a lesser extent, by the Soviet Union , Canada and the USA . The catch numbers were never particularly high due to the rarity of the animals, the high point came in 1952 with around 320 animals killed. A whaling moratorium has existed since 1977 , which for the most part bans commercial hunting of these animals. A small quota (60 whales per year) can still be hunted for research purposes, with the meat being sold on the Japanese market. There are no exact estimates of the total stock, approximate figures amount to several thousand copies.
literature
- Rüdiger Wandrey: The whales and seals of the world . Franckh-Kosmos Verlags GmbH, 1997, ISBN 3-440-07047-6
Web links
- Berardius bairdii inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013.2. Listed by: Taylor, BL, Baird, R., Barlow, J., Dawson, SM, Ford, J., Mead, JG, Notarbartolo di Sciara, G., Wade, P. & Pitman, RL, 2008. Retrieved on December 29, 2013.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Baird's Beaked Whale ( Memento from June 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Phillip A. Morin, C. Scott Baker, Reid S. Brewer, Alexander M. Burdin, Merel L. Dalebout, James P. Dines, Ivan Fedutin, Olga Filatova, Erich Hoyt, Jean-Luc Jung, Morgane Lauf, Charles W. Potter, Gaetan Richard, Michelle Ridgway, Kelly M. Robertson, Paul R. Wade. Genetic structure of the beaked whale genus Berardius in the North Pacific, with genetic evidence for a new species. Marine Mammal Science, 2016; doi: 10.1111 / mms.12345