The Gray whale is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly.
The common name of the whale comes from the grey patches and white mottling on its dark skin. Gray whales were once called devil fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted.
- Length; 14.9metres,
- Weight; 41 tons,
- Life span: 55-70 years.
The gray whale is distributed in an eastern North Pacific (North American), and an endangered western North Pacific (Asian), population.
Gray Whales don’t have a dorsal fin- a hump on back and a series of small bumps going down instead.
Food: Baleen whales, have a unique feeding strategy. They feed on invertebrate species, commonly bottom feeders, utilizing coarse baleen to filter out not only water but also sediments They eat shrimp, worms, larvae, amphipods.
Skim feeding, they skim along surface picking up zooplankton as they go.
Distribution: Longest migration of many species. Breeding grounds down in Baja, while travelling north they remain close to the shore all the way up to the North American coast.
