Bowhead whale

What do bowheads look like?

Bowheads are named after their unique, steeply arched upper jaw and mouth which are shaped like an archer’s bow. Their immense heads have two blowholes and a distinctive V-shaped bow, and measure about a third of their total body length – sometimes reaching up to an incredible 20 meters (65ft) long. Chunky, rotund whales, bowheads have wide, smooth black backs and paddle-shaped flippers. With a distinctive white chin patch, bowheads also have bellies peppered with white spots and a grey band just in front of their tails.

Scientists will often use whales’ dorsal fins to help recognise and keep track of individuals. However, bowhead whales don’t actually have a dorsal fin, or even a ridge or hump. This is because they spend so much of their time swimming around under sea ice, that a dorsal fin would be an awkward inconvenience. So instead, scientists use white scars on their bodies as identifying features.

What’s life like for a bowhead whale?

Bowheads are not ones to be rushed and don’t really do anything particularly quickly. They grow very slowly, not reaching sexual maturity until they are 25 years old, and females only reproduce every 3 to 4 years. Making sure they stay well-nourished in their Arctic homes, baby bowheads stay with their mothers for about a year, drinking plenty of milk while their baleen develops. Once they have grown up, they tend to travel solo, or in small pods of two or three individuals.

Slow growers, bowheads are also slow swimmers and understandably try to conserve their energy. Living in such an extreme environment, they are faced with a number of challenges, including limited visibility and huge layers of ice that build up on the sea’s surface, restricting their access to precious oxygen. Fortunately, bowheads have developed ways of getting around these problems. Using their strong, thick-skulled heads, they can break through sea ice of up to half a metre thick to breathe. They also are hugely vocal, honing an enormous repertoire of sounds that they use to communicate with each other, find food and navigate amongst the icy darkness.

What do they eat?

Bowheads’ favourite meals are krill and copepods, but they can also eat a range of other small invertebrates and fish. Filter-feeders, they swim along with their mouths partly open, gulping in huge volumes of water and food simultaneously that they then filter through their baleen. Longer than that of any other whale, their baleen can grow up to 4m (13ft) in length.

Where do they live?

Bowhead whales live only in the polar Arctic waters of the northern hemisphere. They live in mostly shallow coastal water less than 200m deep amongst the sea ice. Bowhead movement patterns in the Arctic are mainly influenced by the seasons and they venture further north during the summer months as the sea ice melts and recedes.