The Humpback Whale Essay, Research Paper
The Humpback Whale
To look up into the mountains and see the steam turn overing from a mountain watercourse on a cold winters forenoon is a beautiful sight. However, to look out over the skyline and see the white spray of salt H2O coming from the blow of a immense hump-back giant is much more exciting sight and a whole batch heater. I lived in the mountains of Colorado for most of my childhood. The first clip I had the chance to see the ocean was on a holiday to California, when I was about 15 old ages old. It was even better than I had dreamed it would be. The different animate beings in the ocean, the colour of the H2O, and the warm sand between my toes was likely what led me to come to the islands of Hawaii. When I foremost saw the hump-back giant I was amazed at their immense size and how they could transgress out of the H2O so gracefully. It is as if they were seeking to play or demo off. So when we were asked to take a favourite animate being, I had no job make up one’s minding on the hump-back giant.
The hump-back whale gets it s name from the typical bulge in forepart of the dorsal five and from the manner it raises it s back high above H2O before plunging. They are a member of the order Cetacea. This order is of aquatic mammals and the hump-back belongs to the suborder of the Mysticeti. The Mysticeti are the whalebone giants which have three households and several species. The household in which the hump-back belongs is the Balaenopteridae, the true five backed giant. The thing that separates this genus from the other fin-backed giants is the thoracic fives, which grow in lengths of about 5 metres ( 16.4 pess ) . This Genus is called Megaptera significance great wing ( Tinker 290 ) . There was a contention over the species name in the late nineteenth and early 20th century. In 1932, Remington Kellogg eventually settled the affair with Megatera Novaeangliae ( Cousteau 84 ) . The common English name is the hump-back giant.
The hump-back giant lives in both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Since we live in the Pacific I ll be discoursing the hump-backs of the North Pacific. They migrate from North to South. In the months of July through September they gather in the Aleutian Islands, Bering Sea or the Chukchi Sea. They head south for the winter. They go to one of three countries: ( 1 ) Between the Bonin Islands, the Marianas Islands, the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan ; ( 2 ) The Hawaiian Islands, and ( 3 ) Along the seashore of Mexico ( Tinker 291 ) .
One of the grounds these giants go North is for feeding. They have a short nutrient concatenation compared to most mammals. Phytoplankton turns sunlight into energy and this energy is consumed by zooplankton. The zooplankton and phytoplankton are eaten by little fish. The giant in bend eats the fish. The concatenation is complete when waste merchandises or dead giants decompose. They have a really short clip frame in which they eat compared to the 12 months out of the twelvemonth. They have non been seen feeding in Hawaii. It seems that they merely feed during the summer months up north. During the fasting periods, in Hawaii, they survive on their blubber. They mix their diet with copepods, euphausiids ( krill ) , and little fish, chiefly herring and capelan. They are considered filter feeders, utilizing baleen home bases to filtrate out their nutrient. They take immense sums of H2O into their oral cavity utilizing a gulping method and so when they push the H2O out, they put their lingua up so the H2O must go through through the whalebones. The nutrient becomes trapped and falls toward the rear of the oral cavity. The two quaffing methods hump-back giants usage are lunge eating and bubble net eating. Lunge eating is used when nutrient is abundant. The giant merely swims through the quarry with it s mouth unfastened steeping the quarry. They can make this vertically, laterally or inverted. This is done toward the surface of the ocean. Bubble net eating is used when the quarry is less abundant. The whale honkytonks below the quarry and discharges bubbles from it s blowhole. As the bubbles ascend they form a net that disorients the quarry. Then the giant swims upward and fills his oral cavity with the cyberspace of fish and bubbles ( Kaufman 55 ) . Hump-backs have ventral channels in their pharynx that expand leting an tremendous sum of H2O to be gulped. Hump-backs consume about a ton of nutrient in a twenty-four hours s clip during their eating season.
The hump-back giant s tummy consists of three Chamberss and the duodenal ampulla much like a cattles. The three tummies are separate from each other. They have little and big bowels, a rectum, cecum and an anus. These variety meats are really similar and work much the same as in most mammals. The digestive secretory organs of a giant are slightly different. They do non hold salivary secretory organs that are functional. The liver is bilobed and the saddle sore vesica is absent. The pancreas nevertheless resembles that of most other mammals ( Tinker 63 ) .
Mammals, which live in the sea, have a continued job of desiccation. Hump-backs get H2O from the nutrient they eat and during their fasting periods they get it from their blubber. However, the salt in the giants bodily fluids is much higher than land mammals but it is still lower than the saltwater. This creates a job. They are in danger of losing excessively much H2O. In order to keep a proper balance the whale base on ballss big measures of extremely concentrated piss. The kidneys are specialized to make this. The fecal matters besides permit discharge of salt. However, few surveies have been done on hump-back s fecal matters or piss ( Kaufman 31 ) .
As worlds we can take a breath either from our oral cavity or nose. This is non the instance of the hump-back giant. The wha
lupus erythematosus can neither inhale or exhale through their oral cavity. The rhinal gaps of a giant are known as the blowhole. There are two mated gaps at the top of the caput. The holes are closed and made H2O tight by two stoppers ( Tinker 65-68 ) .
If you weighed 10 elephants that would be the mean weight of one hump-back giant. The male and female giant likewise weigh between 30 and 50 dozenss. This weight will change depending on the season. While fasting in Hawaii the weight will be much less. The calves are born in January and early February as a consequence from the old old ages copulating. They are born at about 14 pess long and stop up every bit long as sixty-two and a half pess with an norm of 50 pess. The calf, a immature hump-back, will imbibe one-hundred lbs of milk each twenty-four hours. This milk is really rich compared to domestic animate beings. The calf will get down to nurse shortly after birth from two mammillas located on either side of the vaginal slit. ( Coustea 86 ) . After birth they grow really fast. By March they more than double their weight and are ready to get down their migration north. They will ablactate in approximately five to seven months from birth.
Giants are non monogamous. Males have been seen frolicing and playing with females and it is thought that sometime during this romping and playing coupling occurs. It has ne’er been determined when. Over eleven to twelve months subsequently, back in the same Waterss, the female gives birth. Normally they do non hold calves each twelvemonth, nevertheless, it is possible. The birth of twins has ne’er been recorded nevertheless it is possible. Sexual adulthood is every bit early as four old ages old for both sexes. They live for about 30 old ages but surveies have shown they can populate much longer. Using a & # 8220 ; wax plug & # 8221 ; system, much like the system of the rings of a tree, one giant was thought to hold been 58 old ages old before it died. ( Balcom 15-19 ) .The generative variety meats are located internally. The males phallus is withdrawn into a slit. An hard-on of the phallus is accomplished by a brace of musculuss, much like that of cowss and Equus caballuss. The females ovaries produce individual celled eggs. When the egg is mature it is discharged into the fallopian tubing, a procedure known as ovulation. At this clip if mating occurs and the egg is fertilized with sperm from the male the birth of a babe giant is on the manner. ( Kaufman 31-33 ) .
Most mammals normally have five sense variety meats. The giant merely has three. Touch, which is located in the tegument, is the sense that can experience pain, heat, cold and quiver. They besides have antennas called whisker. These antennas are really similar to beards on a domestic cat. The whisker are located in rows on the terminal of the lower jaw, on the sides of the lower jaw and on top of the caput. Sight is the sense that allows the giant to see. The form of the giants eyeball tend to do them far-sighted below the surface and near sighted above the surface. Since the eyes are located on either side of the caput it makes it impossible for their ocular Fieldss to overlap, hence, they do non hold depth perceptual experience. Their audile sense, or hearing, is really of import because in the ocean the visibleness is hapless. Good hearing is used to assist turn up nutrient, hear the attack of enemies, and communicate with each other. Their ears are gone and merely a slit appears halfway between the oculus and the base of the fin. The sense of odor and gustatory sensation are non present like in most mammals ( Tinker 81-85 ) .
Due to the size of these tremendous animate beings they have few marauders. Man is their worst enemy. However, they do hold confrontations with other giants. Some of the defences used are, make fulling their oral cavity with H2O or air so to bluff the encroacher into believing they are bigger than they are. As a 2nd line of defence they will utilize the caput and fins as arms. They besides use their immense organic structure as a defence mechanism by positioning themselves between the encroacher, like a boat, and female parent and calf. ( Kaufman 93-115 ) . A more elusive defence is countershading, where the top of the giant is dark which makes it harder to see from above looking down and the underside is light so looking up it is difficult to see against the lighter surface of the ocean.
Hump-backs produce a broad scope of sounds. Often these sounds are long and complex that are repeated for hours. The first sounds were recorded here in Hawaii in 1952 by O.W. Schreiber on the footing of recordings collected at the U.S. Navy Sound Fixing and Ranging Station. One giant sung a vocal for 14 hours without halting. Since vocalizing is done chiefly during the coupling season it is thought to function a generative map. It has been shown that merely the males sing this vocal. It may besides pull females, frighten off other males, or keep the distance between vocalists. Males and females likewise make other sounds which are associated with eating and socially active groups ( Kaufman 73-77 ) .
The giants thoracic fives is non used for propulsion but to equilibrate and maneuver. The tail or good luck is used to travel this monolithic mammal through the H2O. The musculus caudal peduncle move the good luck in an up and down way which propels the giant through the H2O ( Tinker 55 ) .
The world-wide population of kyphosiss is estimated between 10 thousand and 15 1000 animate beings. This count is down from over one hundred and 50 1000 last century. ( Dietz 39 ) . Man has hunted the giant stopping point to extinction. The good intelligence is that we have prohibitions against killing giants in most Waterss. Hopefully we did this in clip to salvage them from extinction. It would be a true shame if my grandchildren could non bask these fantastic animals.
