Ocean Ecosystem Series | Episode 8: Fin Whales

Hi everybody, welcome back. This is Amanda from The Whale Mobile, and this week we're going to be talking about one of my absolute favorite species, which is the fin whale. Fin whales are the second largest animal on the planet. They are about 70 to 75 feet long. It's about 40 feet, just from their blowhole to their dorsal fin. They're incredibly streamlined, fast-moving animals, which is how they get their nickname, the greyhounds of the sea. Now one of my favorite things about fin whales is that they're asymmetrically colored, and so the left-hand side of the fin whale is this solid slate grey color, whereas the right side has this beautiful marbleized white coloration. They have a white jaw, white towards their bellies. The first third of their baleen on the right side is also white too. Now those really notable white bands on the right-hand side are called the blaze and the chevron. This blaze and chevron pattern varies from different individuals, and is one of the ways that we can identify fin whales in the field. One of the main ways, however, that we can identify individuals is by looking at the fin whale's dorsal fin. We look at the size of the dorsal fin, the shape, are there any cuts or notches missing out of the dorsal fin, any markings along the body, scars that really stand out. These are usually the things that we'll photograph. Now in recent years, we've found that there's some seasons where fin whales just aren't around as much. That was the case in 2022 and 2023 as well. However, this past season in 2024, we spent so many of our trips with fin whales and we identified numerous individuals. We would watch them feeding, traveling alone, but other times we saw large associations of fin whales traveling with upwards of four individuals in these associations at a time. Now let's play this clip again because my favorite thing to see is a fin whale, mom, and calf. Although a bit more of a rare sight, we do see mom and calf fin whales here in the Gulf of Maine. But what's really interesting is that we don't know exactly where these calves were being born or where they're going to breed. Now despite fin whales being so large in these giants of the ocean, there's still so many things that we're learning about them. So that is just a little bit of information on fin whales and we look forward to seeing you next week for another video.