The Gray (or Grey) Whale (Eschrichtius robustus) is a baleen whale that travels between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of about 16 meters (52 ft), a weight of 36 tons and an age of 50–60 years. Gray Whales were once called Devil Fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted. The Gray Whale is the sole species in the genus Eschrichtius, which in turn is the sole genus in the family Eschrichtiidae. This animal is des...
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The Gray (or Grey) Whale (Eschrichtius robustus) is a baleen whale that travels between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of about 16 meters (52 ft), a weight of 36 tons and an age of 50–60 years. Gray Whales were once called Devil Fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted. The Gray Whale is the sole species in the genus Eschrichtius, which in turn is the sole genus in the family Eschrichtiidae. This animal is descended from the filter-feeding whales that developed at the beginning of the Oligocene, over 30 million years before the present.
The Gray Whale is distributed in an eastern North Pacific (American) population and a critically endangered western North Pacific (Asian) population. Eastern and western populations in the North Atlantic became extinct in the 18th century.
The Gray Whale has been traditionally placed in its own monotypic genus and family, however recent DNA sequencing analysis indicates that certain rorquals of the family...
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