Bp903

Like other whales, Bp903 is here to feed. And to do so, it needs its tongue! The latter is not particularly muscular but it is very elastic. When a whale opens its mouth, water gushes in with great pressure.

Pushed toward the bottom of the mouth, the tongue turns back on itself like the finger of a glove, forming a pocket that can hold water. The pressure also inflates the ventral grooves. The tongue might also also play a roll in expelling water. Once they return to their original position, the tongue and ventral grooves reduce the available volume in the mouth, as a result of which water is expelled from the mouth through the baleen.

This year, it was photo-identified for the first time in August. Bp903 is now part of the new 2018 edition of the catalog of great whales in the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park. This new edition includes data updated in 2017.

Fin whales often come second when it comes to whale watching at sea. It is perceived as less spectacular and less demonstrative than the blue or humpback whale, as it very rarely raises its tail when diving. Among other rorqual whales, it also often ranks second. The fin whale is the second largest whale, after the blue whale. It’s also the second-fastest, after the sei whale. When it surfaces, the fin whale shows only its back, which makes the rest of its body quite mysterious when viewed from outside the water, at the surface.

Underwater, its slender, elongated hydrodynamic shape makes it look like a torpedo. It is more slender than other species. Its head is 20 to 25% of its body, or a quarter of its total size. In the blue whale, the head measures 22-27% of its body, or almost a third of its total size. Like most baleen whales, its pectoral fins have 4 non-articulated fingers grouped in a single fin on each side. Only the shoulder joint is mobile. Its flippers are relatively small and thin for a rorqual, measuring only 8 to 10% of its total length, or around two meters. In the humpback whale, the pectoral fins measure around a third of its total length, or around five meters. Five meters is the width of the fin whale’s tail fin! In the blue whale, the caudal fin can measure up to 7 meters! In whales, the tail fin is an extension of the vertebral column, so it has no other bones, unlike the flippers. The only remnants of cetaceans’ terrestrial ancestors are the two small pelvic bones near the genital slits. These bones are floating and detached from the rest of the skeleton, and their purpose is still a mystery…