Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)

- TAXONOMY
Class : Mammalia
Order : Cetartiodactyla
Infraorder : Cetacea
Parvorder : Mysticeti
Family : Balaenopteridae
Common names :
English : Humpback whale
Spanish : Ballena jorobada
French : Baleine à bosse

- MORPHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR
Morphology : slender head with large protruding knobs. Extremely long flippers (to 1/3 body length), with knobs on leading edge. In the North Atlantic, the flippers are predominantly white, which often helps to identify the species. Small dorsal fin usually atop hump, 2/3 back on body and “knuckles” behind dorsal fin to fluke. broad flukes with serrated trailing edge and variable pattern on underside that are used to identify individuals.
Color and patterns : black or dark gray upper body with variable amounts of white on throat/belly.
Size : 12-16 m
Group size : mostly single individual or mother-calf pairs or groups of few individuals. Calves stay near their mothers for up to 1 year before weaning.
Specific behavior : it often shows aerial displays, such as breaching (jumping out of the water) or slapping the surface with their pectoral fins and tails. It also often gets close to vessels.
Feeding : It consumes plankton (krill) and small pelagic schooling fish, in high latitudes, and rarely feeds during migration and reproduction period.

- DISTRIBUTION
Global distribution : Humpback whales live throughout the world’s major oceans. They can travel great distances during their seasonal migration with some animals migrating 15 000 km between high latitude feeding grounds and winter mating and calving areas in tropical waters.
Sightings in the Wider Caribbean region : the first humpback whales usually reach the Caribbean by the end of the year and most have left the region by the end of April of the following year. Their breeding area extends from Cuba to southern Venezuela. The areas of greatest concentration are found in the north of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and around the Lesser Antilles. They are generally observed in shallow water areas (10-200m), near the coasts, or offshore, above the coral shelves. Humpback whales that breed in the Caribbean have a feeding area that extends from the Gulf of Maine (43°N) to the northern Norwegian Sea (75°N).
In French Guiana, for the last fifteen years, a few observations have been made between July and November. It seems that these individuals belong to the southwest Atlantic population, which feeds around the South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and breeds mainly in the Abrolhos archipelago, in Brazil.

- CONSERVATION
Threats recorded in the Wider Caribbean region : whaling (several individuals caught per year), entanglements in Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) and in ghost fishing gears, collision with large vessels and whale watching disturbance.

IUCN status : classified as LC (Least Concern) globally, but VU (Vulnerable) in the regional red lists of Venezuela, Colombia and Martinique.

SPAW status : The Humpback whale is classified in Annex II of the SPAW Protocol since 1991.

SOURCES
International whaling commission-About whales
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IUCN and Zoological Society of London (2012) National Red Lists
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Kaschner, K., Reeves, R. (2011) LifeWeb species distribution factsheets.
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Society for marine mammalogy-Species fact sheets
SPAW-RAC. (2020). Implementation of the Action Plan for Marine Mammals in the Wider Caribbean Region : A Scientific and Technical Analysis. Authored by Vail, C. and Borobia, M. UNEP, SPAW-RAC.
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