Fin whale

The fin whale is the second-longest animal on Earth after the blue whale. The biggest individuals reportedly measured 26 to 27.3 metres, and adults usually weigh 36 to 45 tonnes. Its body is long, slender and brownish-grey, with a paler underside that makes it less visible from below. It lives in all the major oceans, from polar to tropical waters, and is most common in temperate and cool seas.

Fin whales are baleen whales that filter food from the water, mainly krill, copepods, small schooling fish and squid. They are among the fastest of the great whales. They normally cruise at 37 to 41 km/h, and bursts of 46 to 50 km/h have been recorded, which earned the whale its nickname 'the greyhound of the sea'. It has two blowholes that can send a spout 4 to 6 metres into the air. The IUCN lists it as vulnerable.

Whaling and recovery

Fin whales were prized by whalers, and more than 725,000 were reportedly taken from the Southern Hemisphere between 1905 and 1976. By 2010, numbers of the southern fin whale were predicted to be below half of what they were before whaling. In the North Atlantic, fin whales are considered fully recovered, while elsewhere recovery is still going on. As of 2018 the IUCN assessed the species as vulnerable.

Food and voices

Their diet varies by place. In the North Pacific, most whales examined in past whaling studies had eaten only krill. In the North Atlantic, they eat krill and small fish such as capelin. Fin whales are often seen in pods of 6 to 10 animals and talk to each other with sounds at 16 to 40 hertz, much lower than people can usually hear. Like other rorquals, it has grooves running from the tip of the lower jaw to the navel.

Growing up

Mating happens in winter in warm, low-latitude water, and a pregnancy lasts 11 to 12 months. A calf is 6 to 6.5 metres long at birth. At 6 to 7 months old, when it is already 11 to 12 metres, it stops drinking its mother's milk. Calves stay with their mothers for around a year. Fin whales can live a long time: some caught off Iceland were 65 to 82 years old, and a female found in 2010 was estimated at 135 to 140 years.

On the globe

The model shows a huge, slender whale with a pale underside, as in the card. Look at the long body and the throat grooves.