Humpback whale

Humpback whale, (Megaptera novaeangliae), a baleen whale known for its elaborate courtship songs and displays. Humpbacks usually range from 12 to 16 metres (39 to 52 feet) in length and weigh approximately 36 metric tons (40 short [U.S.] tons). The body is black on the upper surface, with a variable amount of white below, and it has about 30 broad ventral grooves on the throat and chest. This cetacean is distinguished from other baleen whales by its long, narrow flippers, which are about a third as long as the body and scalloped on the forward edge. Humpbacks also have large knobs on the head, jaws, and body, each knob being associated with one or two hairs. The dorsal fin is small and set far back on the body. Humpback whales live along the coasts of all oceans, occasionally swimming close to shore, even into harbours and rivers. They undertake long migrations between polar feeding grounds in summer and tropical or subtropical breeding grounds in winter. Diet consists of shrimplike crustaceans called krill, small fish, and plankton, which the humpback whale strains out of the water with its baleen. Humpbacks use a unique method of feeding called bubblenetting, in which bubbles are exhaled as the whale swims in a spiral below a patch of water dense with food. The curtain of bubbles confines the prey to a small area in the middle of which one or more whales surface.