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BRYDE'S WHALE FACTS |
Description
Bryde's Whale is dark gray with a yellowish white underside. It is the second smallest rorqual (after the Northern Minke Whale). It has three parallel ridges in the area between the blowholes and the tip of the head. The dorsal fin is sickle shaped and the flippers are small relative to body size.Bryde's Whale has two rows of baleen plates on the top jaw with about 300 plates on each side. Each baleen plate is short and wide - about 50cm x 19cm.
Size
Length: males 11.9m - 14.6m; females 12.2m - 15.6m
Habitat
warm-temperate and tropical waters
Food
small fish (pilchard, mackerel, herring), crustaceans (shrimp, crabs), also some octopus and squid. Eats more fish than many other baleen whales.
Breeding
A single calf is born after gestation period of 12 months. The calf is about 4m long at birth and weighs about 1000kg. Young are weaned after about six month. A female bears one calf every two or three years.
Range
warmer waters of Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean.
Credits:
Map is from Atlas of Living Australia website at https://biocache.ala.org.au licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Classification
| Class: | Mammalia | | Order: | Cetacea | | Family: | Balaenopteridae | | Genus: | Balaenoptera | | Species: | edeni | | Common Name: | Bryde's Whale |
Relatives in same Genus
Dwarf Minke Whale (B. acutorostrata)
Blue Whale (B. musculus)
Fin Whale (B. physalus)
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