Balaena mysticetus - The Bowhead Whale

The closest relative of the right whale is the bowhead whale. As far as anyone can tell, it the longest living cetacean, one of the longest living animals in the world, reaching 200 years of age and more, though no one is really very sure about how long they live. Individuals have been found with hunting equipment embedded in their bodies which has not been used since the mid 19^th Century. That means there may be whales today, swimming about out there, who passed before the eyes of Herman Melville; whales old enough to have witnessed the quixotic arctic adventurers in their search for the North West Passage! 

Skeleton with enormous baleen plates

Weighing up to 100 tonnes, they have the biggest mouths on the planet, full of baleen plates that reach up to 10 feet long. They don’t migrate but stick to arctic waters, for which they keep the thickest blubber of any animal - up to half a metre thick. Unlike the rorquals they are very sturdy and can smash through 60cm of solid sea ice to create breathing holes. They are immensely powerful, but rather slow - with no need ever to sprint. They seldom get above walking speed (1-3 miles per hour), though can get up to 6mph if rushed. Bowheads can hold their breath for as long as an hour - though 20 minutes is more usual. They are not very sociable creatures, which is presumably why they've retired to the remoteness of the Arctic Circle. Like so many whales, they have complex songs which tend to be in very low frequencies. A glance at the picture above will tell you how they got their common name. American whalers used to call them 'steeple-top' whales, which I quite like.

'La Baleine Franche'
Engraving by Robert Bernard 1795

18th Century engraving of Dutch
whalers hunting bowhead whales

Harpoon from circa 1880 found in
a bowhead whale in Alaska in 2007

Whale hunters in Alaska

Hunting reduced the total population of bowheads down to about 5000 individuals by the end of the 1970s, and its a wonder that they weren't extinguished entirely, but the population is now heading back towards 20 000, so we can hope for the best, though the gene pool has been greatly diminished and they're not out of the woods yet. They are still hunted for subsistence by groups indigenous to Alaska, though the effect this has on conservation and population is negligible. They are unique animals and I hope that some of the calves born this year will still be around in the year 2217. There's some good footage of bowheads here