Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Fin whales, or fin-backed whales, are found in all major oceans and open seas. Some pop­u­la­tions are mi­gra­tory, mov­ing into colder wa­ters dur­ing the spring and sum­mer months to feed. In au­tumn, they re­turn to tem­per­ate or trop­i­cal oceans. Be­cause of the dif­fer­ence in sea­sons in the north­ern and south­ern hemi­sphere, north­ern and south­ern pop­u­la­tions of fin whales do not meet at the equa­tor at the same time dur­ing the year. Other pop­u­la­tions are seden­tary, stay­ing in the same area through­out the year. Non-mi­gra­tory pop­u­la­tions are found in the Mediter­ranean Sea and the Gulf of Cal­i­for­nia. (Gam­bell, 1985; Jef­fer­son, et al., 1994; Nowak, 1991)

In sum­mer in the North Pa­cific Ocean, fin whales mi­grate to the Chukchi Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and coastal Cal­i­for­nia. In the win­ter, they are found from Cal­i­for­nia to the Sea of Japan, East China and Yel­low Seas, and into the Philip­pine Sea. (Gam­bell, 1985)

Dur­ing the sum­mer in the North At­lantic Ocean, fin whales are found from the North Amer­i­can coast to Arc­tic wa­ters around Green­land, Ice­land, north Nor­way, and into the Bar­ents Sea. In the win­ter these fin whale pop­u­la­tions are found from the ice edge to­ward the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mex­ico and from south­ern Nor­way to Spain. (Gam­bell, 1985)

In the south­ern hemi­sphere, fin whales enter and leave the Antarc­tic through­out the year. Larger and older whales tend to travel fur­ther south than younger ones. (Gam­bell, 1985)

• Biogeographic Regions
• arctic ocean
  • native
• indian ocean
  • native
• atlantic ocean
  • native
• pacific ocean
  • native
• mediterranean sea
  • native

• Other Geographic Terms
• cosmopolitan

Habi­tat

Fin whales in­habit the tem­per­ate and polar zones of all major oceans and open seas and, less com­monly, in trop­i­cal oceans and seas. They tend to live in coastal and shelf wa­ters but never in water less than 200 me­ters deep. (Jef­fer­son, et al., 1994; Nowak, 1991; Reeves, et al., 2002)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical
• polar
• saltwater or marine

• Aquatic Biomes
• pelagic
• coastal

• Range depth

  200 to 250 m

  656.17 to 820.21 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Fin whales are the sec­ond largest mam­mals, after blue whales. They grow to 20 me­ters in length and weigh ap­prox­i­mately 70,000 kilo­grams. Size varies ge­o­graph­i­cally: south­ern hemi­sphere whales are roughly 20 me­ters long, while north­ern and Arc­tic fin whales reach up to 25 me­ters in length. Sex­ual di­mor­phism in fin whales is lim­ited, with males and fe­males reach­ing roughly the same size and weight as adults. It is gen­er­ally easy to dis­tin­guish fin whales by their long, lean bod­ies, their brown-grey dor­sal sur­face, and deep white un­der­sides. Fin whales can be dis­tin­guished from other whales by the medium-sized white patch on their lower, right jaw. The base of the tail is raised, caus­ing their back to have a dis­tinc­tive ridge. The white un­der­side wraps around to their mid­sec­tion lat­er­ally. The dor­sal fin is 50 cm in height, curved, and found rel­a­tively far back on the body. The head is quite flat and rep­re­sents about 1/5 of total body length. These whales have two blow­holes and a sin­gle, lon­gi­tu­di­nal ridge ex­tends from the tip of the snout to the be­gin­ning of the blow­holes. Fin whales are able to ex­pand their mouths and throats dur­ing feed­ing be­cause of the roughly 100 pleats that run from the bot­tom of their bod­ies to their mouths. These pleats allow the mouth cav­ity to en­gulf water dur­ing feed­ing. Fin whales are fil­ter feed­ers, with be­tween 350 and 400 baleen plates that are used to catch very small to medium-sized aquatic life sus­pended in the water. ("Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008; Croll, et al., 2002; Reeves, et al., 2002)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike

• Average mass

  70,000 kg

  lb

• Average mass

  7e+07 g

  2466960.35 oz

  AnAge

• Range length

  19 to 27 m

  62.34 to 88.58 ft

• Average length

  24 m

  78.74 ft

Re­pro­duc­tion

Fin whales are seen in pairs dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son and are be­lieved to be monog­a­mous. There have been sight­ings of courtship be­hav­ior dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son. A male will chase a fe­male while emit­ting a se­ries of repet­i­tive, low-fre­quency vo­cal­iza­tions, sim­i­lar to hump­back whale songs. How­ever, these songs are not as com­plex as those ob­served in hump­back whales or gray whales. One study has shown that only males pro­duce these low-fre­quency sounds. Low fre­quen­cies are used be­cause they travel well in water, at­tract­ing fe­males from far away. This is im­por­tant be­cause fin whales do not have spe­cific mat­ing grounds and must com­mu­ni­cate to find each other. (Croll, et al., 2002; Nowak, 1991; Sokolov and Arsen'ev, 1984)

• Mating System
• monogamous

Both mat­ing and calv­ing occur in the late fall or win­ter when fin whales in­habit warmer wa­ters. Each fe­male gives birth every 2 to 3 years, birthing one calf per preg­nancy. Al­though there have been re­ports of fin whales giv­ing birth to mul­ti­ple off­spring, it is rare and those off­spring rarely sur­vive. The ges­ta­tion pe­riod is 11 to 11.5 months. The mother then un­der­goes a rest­ing pe­riod of 5 or 6 months be­fore mat­ing again. This rest­ing pe­riod may ex­tend to a year if the fe­male fails to con­ceive dur­ing the mat­ing pe­riod. (Gam­bell, 1985; Nowak, 1991; Reeves, et al., 2002)

Fin whale calves are born at an av­er­age length of 6 me­ters and weigh­ing 3,500 to 3,600 kilo­grams. Calves are pre­co­cial at birth, able to swim im­me­di­ately after. The age of sex­ual ma­tu­rity ranges in from 4 to 8 years. Male fin whales be­come sex­u­ally ma­ture at a body length of about 18.6 me­ters while fe­males ma­ture at a body length of 19.9 me­ters. Phys­i­cal ma­tu­rity does not occur until the whales have reached their full length, after 22 to 25 years of age. The av­er­age length for a phys­i­cally ma­ture male is 18.9 m and 20.1 m for fe­males. (Sokolov and Arsen'ev, 1984; Tin­ker, 1988)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
• viviparous

• Breeding interval

  Fin whales breed every 2 to 3 years.

• Breeding season

  Breeding occurs from November to January in the northern hemisphere and June to September in the southern hemisphere.

• Range number of offspring

  1 to 1

• Average number of offspring

  1

  AnAge

• Range gestation period

  11 to 12 months

• Range weaning age

  6 to 7 months

• Range time to independence

  6 to 8 months

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  4 to 8 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  7.7 years

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  4 to 8 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  6.7 years

The mother nurses the in­fant for 6 to 7 months after it is born. Since the calf does not have the abil­ity to suckle, like land mam­mals, the mother must spray the milk into the mouth of the baby by con­tract­ing the cir­cu­lar mus­cles at the base of the nip­ple sinus. Feed­ing takes place at 8 to 10 minute in­ter­vals through­out the day. At wean­ing the calf is usu­ally 14 me­ters long, it then trav­els with its mother to a polar feed­ing area where it learns to feed it­self in­de­pen­dent of its mother. (Nowak, 1991; Sokolov and Arsen'ev, 1984)

• Parental Investment
• precocial
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

The typ­i­cal lifes­pan of a fin whale is roughly 75 years but some there are re­ports of fin whales that have lived in ex­cess of 100 years. ("Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  95 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  75 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  75 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  114.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  116.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

Fin whales are among the most so­cia­ble species of whales, they often con­gre­gate in fam­ily groups of be­tween 6 and 10 mem­bers. Oc­ca­sion­ally fin whales form groups of nearly 250 in­di­vid­u­als near feed­ing grounds or dur­ing mi­gra­tion pe­ri­ods. Fin whales are highly mi­gra­tory; in spring and early sum­mer they usu­ally re­side in colder feed­ing wa­ters, in fall and win­ter they re­turn to warmer wa­ters to mate. Fin whales have long been noted for their ex­treme speed and are one of the fastest ma­rine mam­mals, with a cruis­ing speed of nearly 23 mph and a “sprint­ing” speed of nearly 25 mph. Fin whales can dive up to depths of roughly 250 m and stay un­der­wa­ter for nearly 15 min­utes. In ad­di­tion, male fin whales often make ex­tremely low fre­quency sounds that are among the low­est sounds made by any an­i­mal. ("Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008; Jef­fer­son, et al., 1994)

• Key Behaviors
• natatorial
• diurnal
• nocturnal
• motile
• migratory
• social

• Average territory size

  >2000 km^2

Home Range

Home range sizes have not been es­tab­lished. Fin whales mi­grate over long dis­tances through­out the year. ("Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Fin whales, like blue whales, com­mu­ni­cate through vo­cal­iza­tions. Fin whales pro­duce low fre­quency sounds that range from 16 to 40 Hz, out­side of the hear­ing range of hu­mans. They also pro­duce 20 Hz pulses (both sin­gle and pat­terned pulses), ragged low-fre­quency pluses and rum­bles, and non-vo­cal sharp im­pulse sounds. Sin­gle fre­quen­cies (non-pat­terned pulses) last be­tween 1 and 2 min­utes while pat­terned call­ing can last for up to 15 min­utes. The pat­terned pulses may be re­peated for many days. ("Fin­back Whales, Bioa­coustics Re­search Pro­gram", 2006; Gam­bell, 1985; Mc­Don­lad, et al., 1995)

Higher fre­quency sounds have been recorded and are be­lieved to be used for com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­tween nearby fin whales and other pods. These high fre­quen­cies may com­mu­ni­cate in­for­ma­tion about local food avail­abil­ity. The 20 Hz sin­gle pulses help whales com­mu­ni­cate with both local and long dis­tances mem­bers and pat­terned 20 Hz pulses are as­so­ci­ated with courtship dis­plays. (Gam­bell, 1985; Mc­Don­lad, et al., 1995)

A study done about the sound fre­quen­cies of fin whales sug­gest that whales use counter-call­ing in order to get in­for­ma­tion about their sur­round­ings. Counter-call­ing is when one whale of a pod calls and an­other an­swers. The in­for­ma­tion con­veyed by the time it takes to an­swer as well as the echo of the an­swer is be­lieved to hold a lot of im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion about the whale’s sur­round­ings. (Gam­bell, 1985; Mc­Don­lad, et al., 1995)

• Communication Channels
• acoustic

• Other Communication Modes
• choruses

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• ultrasound
• chemical

Food Habits

Fin whales pri­mar­ily feed on plank­ton-sized an­i­mals in­clud­ing crus­taceans, fish, and squid. As fil­ter feed­ers they pas­sively con­sume food by fil­ter­ing prey out of the water that they swim through. Fin whales oc­ca­sion­ally swim around schools of fish to con­dense the school so that they in­crease their catch per dive. ("Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008; Jef­fer­son, et al., 1994)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • piscivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods
  • eats other marine invertebrates
• planktivore

• Animal Foods
• fish
• aquatic crustaceans
• other marine invertebrates
• zooplankton

• Plant Foods
• phytoplankton

• Foraging Behavior
• filter-feeding

Pre­da­tion

Adult fin whales have no nat­ural preda­tors. Pop­u­la­tions have been heav­ily ex­ploited by hu­mans who nearly hunted them to ex­tinc­tion in the early part of the 20th cen­tury. Hunt­ing ex­ceeded nearly 10,000 whales per year in the 1950’s. Young fin whales may be tar­geted by large preda­tors, such as killer whales, al­though fin whales groups are likely to be suc­cess­ful in de­fend­ing their young. ("Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008; Croll, et al., 2002; "Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008; Croll, et al., 2002; "Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008; Croll, et al., 2002; Sokolov and Arsen'ev, 1984; Tin­ker, 1988)

• Known Predators

  • humans (Homo sapiens)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Fin whales have lit­tle pres­sure ex­erted on them by preda­tory an­i­mals and thus their main con­tri­bu­tion to the gen­eral ecosys­tem is to con­sume large amounts of plank­ton. Their car­casses also sup­port com­mu­ni­ties of ben­thic an­i­mals as they fall to the ocean floor and are con­sumed. As do other large whales, fin whales also host large com­mu­ni­ties of par­a­sites, such as bar­na­cles, lice, and worms. ("Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008; Croll, et al., 2002; Gam­bell, 1985)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

His­tor­i­cally, fin whales were hunted ex­ten­sively for their oil and blub­ber, as well as their baleen. Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples have hunted fin whales for cen­turies and all parts of the whale were in­te­gral in their lives as a source of food, fuel, and build­ing ma­te­ri­als. Large-scale hunt­ing ef­forts peaked in the 1950’s, as nearly 10,000 whales were killed every year. (Nowak, 1991; Reeves, et al., 2002)

• Positive Impacts
• food
• body parts are source of valuable material
• source of medicine or drug
• research and education

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Fin whales have no neg­a­tive eco­nomic ef­fects on hu­mans. ("Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Over­hunt­ing is re­spon­si­ble for low pop­u­la­tion num­bers of fin whales cur­rently. With the in­ven­tion and use of mod­ern whal­ing tech­nol­ogy, fin whale pop­u­la­tions were de­pleted due to hunt­ing. In ad­di­tion, fin whales are in­jured or killed in ves­sel col­li­sions. This is es­pe­cially true in the Mediter­ranean Sea where col­li­sions are a sig­nif­i­cant source of fin whale mor­tal­ity. Be­tween 2000 and 2004, 5 fatal col­li­sions with ves­sels were recorded off the east coast of the United States. Fish­ing gear also kills fin whales; en­tan­gle­ment re­sults in at least one death per year. Fish­ing ac­ci­dents have killed 4 fin whales in the years 2000 to 2004. Fi­nally, a study done on whale calls shows that human sound can pre­vent mat­ing. Since the whales use low fre­quency sounds to call to fe­males, human in­ter­rup­tion through sound waves, such as mil­i­tary sonar and seis­mic sur­veys can dis­rupt the sig­nal sent to the fe­males. This po­ten­tially can re­sult in mates not meet­ing and a re­duc­tion in birth rates in pop­u­la­tions. ("Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008; Croll, et al., 2002)

In order to help pop­u­la­tions of fin whales re­cover world­wide, the In­ter­na­tional Whal­ing Com­mis­sion has set a zero limit for fin whale catches in the North Pa­cific and south­ern hemi­sphere. The catch limit was passed in 1976 and con­tin­ues be law today. Hunt­ing stopped in the North At­lantic in 1990. There are some ex­cep­tions to the com­mis­sion’s lim­i­ta­tion, a lim­ited num­ber of whales are al­lowed to be caught and killed by abo­rig­i­nal na­tives in Green­land. Com­mer­cial catches re­sumed in Ice­land in 2006 and a Japan­ese fleet began catch­ing fin whales for "sci­en­tific" pur­poses in 2005. ("Bal­aenoptera physalus", 2008)

• IUCN Red List

  Endangered
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Endangered
  More information

• US Federal List

  Endangered

• CITES

  Appendix I

Con­trib­u­tors

Prashanth Ma­halingam (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Maya Sil­ber­stein (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Phil Myers (ed­i­tor, in­struc­tor), Mu­seum of Zo­ol­ogy, Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Ref­er­ences

2008. "Bal­aenoptera physalus" (On-line). ICUN 2008 Red List. Ac­cessed April 02, 2009 at http://​www.​iucnredlist.​org/​details/​2478.

2006. "Fin­back Whales, Bioa­coustics Re­search Pro­gram" (On-line). Cor­nell Lab of Or­nithol­ogy. Ac­cessed April 09, 209 at http://​www.​birds.​cornell.​edu/​brp/​listen-to-project-sounds/​fin-whales.

Croll, D., C. Clark, A. Acevedo, B. Ter­shy, S. Flo­res, J. Gedamke, J. Urban. 2002. Only Male Fin Whales Sing Loud Songs. Na­ture, 117: 809. Ac­cessed April 09, 209 at http://​polymer.​bu.​edu/​hes/​articles/​aabmsss02.​pdf.

Gam­bell, R. 1985. Fin Whale, Bal­aenoptera physalus. Pp. 171-192 in S Ridg­way, R Har­ri­son, eds. Hand­book of Ma­rine Mam­mals, Vol. 3, first Edi­tion. San Diego, CA: Aca­d­e­mic Press Inc..

Jef­fer­son, T., S. Leather­wood, M. Web­ber. 1994. Ma­rine Mam­mals of the World. Rome, Italy: Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­ga­ni­za­tion of the United Na­tions.

Mc­Don­lad, M., J. Hilde­brand, S. Webb. 1995. Blue and Fin Whales Ob­served on Seafloor Array in the North­east Pa­cific. Jour­nal of the Acousti­cal So­ci­ety of Amer­ica, 98/2: 712-721.

Nowak, R. 1991. Bal­aenopteri­dae: Roquals. Pp. 969-1044 in R Nowak, ed. Walker's Mam­mals of the World, Vol. 2, Fifth Edi­tion. Bal­ti­more and Lon­don: The John Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press.

Reeves, R., B. Stew­art, P. Clapham, J. Pow­ell. 2002. Sea Mam­mals of the World. Lon­don: A&C Black.

Sokolov, V., V. Arsen'ev. 1984. Baleen Whales. Moscow: Nauka Pub­lish­ers.

Tin­ker, S. 1988. Whales Of The World. Hon­olulu, Hawaii: Bess Press Inc..