5 fun facts about humpback whales

With their haunting songs, their epic journeys and their fishing skills, these giants of the sea fascinate us! Here are five things you (maybe) didn’t know about humpback whales.

1. Humpback whales eat a phenomenal amount of food every day: It takes a lot of food to fill up this giant of the sea, which weighs 25 metric tons and measures up to 16 meters long: up to 1.3 metric tons of food per whale per day.
2. They build fish traps: To catch fish, humpbacks have come up with a brilliant technique: the bubble net. Working as a group, they position themselves around and beneath a school of fish and start releasing large amounts of air. The resulting “barrier” of bubbles makes the fish feel trapped. The whales then herd the fish into a smaller and smaller space, before lunging up through the school, mouths wide open, and swallowing thousands of fish. To learn more about this technique, click here.
3. They travel thousands of kilometers: Among mammals, the humpback whale is the endurance champion. It sometimes covers more than 25,000 kilometers in a year, at an average speed of 15 km/h. About every twenty minutes, the huge animal rises to the surface to breathe. That is when it exhales, creating clouds of vapor that look like a jet of water and can rise as high as three meters.
4. Males dance to attract females: In the whale world, courtship is a competition. Sometimes as many as twelve males vie for the same female. They put on displays and perform impressive leaps out of the water. Scientists aren’t certain, but the famous whale “song,” which males sing only during the mating season, may also be a way for the gentlemen to charm the ladies.
5. At birth, a calf already weighs 700 kg: A humpback can have at most one calf a year, but the average is closer to one every two or three years. Birth comes after about eleven months of gestation. The calf then weighs around 700 kilograms and measures 4 to 4.5 meters. Calves stay with their mother for a little over a year.