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Southern Right Whale — printable fact sheet
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Southern Right Whale
Eubalaena australis
The southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) is named for the whaling judgement that it was the "right" whale to kill: it is slow, coastal, floats when dead because of its thick blubber, and yields enormous quantities of oil and baleen. It has no dorsal fin, a broad V-shaped b…
Did you know?
- Southern Right Whales have one of the largest testes of any animal on Earth, weighing up to 500 kg each!
- The callosity pattern on a right whale's head is as individual as a fingerprint and lets researchers track the same animal for 40 years. Right whales "sail" by holding their tail flukes in the wind, apparently for no reason but the ride. Their testes are the largest of any animal, up to 500 kilograms per pair, suggesting mating success is decided by sperm competition rather than by fighting. At Peninsula Valdes, kelp gulls attack living whales, gouging blubber from calves' backs, a behaviour that only appeared in the 1970s and has since escalated.
What I learned
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