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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
The rough patches of skin known as callosities occur in unique patterns on all North Atlantic right whales and help researchers identify and track individual whales. This whale is named Phoenix. More about the right whale can be found in our Tale of a Whale featured story.
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
A life-size, meticulously detailed model of the North Atlantic right whale Phoenix hangs in the Smithsonian’s Sant Ocean Hall in the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC. More about Phoenix can be found in the Tale of a Whale photo essay.
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
The fringed baleen plates are easy to observe as this North Atlantic right whale skims the water’s surface while it feeds. Many baleen whales suck in as much water was possible, and then push it out through their baleen to sieve out any krill. Right whales, however, skim the water's surface. More...
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Jun 22 2011 - 4:05pm
Paeleobiologist Dr. Nicholas Pyenson, Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals for the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), set out with Jorge Velez-Juarbe, NMNH Research Student and Ph. D. Candidate at Howard University and Aaron O'Dea from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute...
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Sep 12 2011 - 4:40pm
The evolution of whales represents one of the great stories in macroevolution. It's a narrative that has mostly benefitted from an extraordinary series of fossils recovered from rocks around the world, including challenging field areas in Egypt, Pakistan, and India.
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May 5 2011 - 2:49pm
Rachel Caauwe was one of a dozen artists who spent a recent Saturday sketching specimens from the Smithsonian's musky-scented marine mammal collection. Here she's shown drawing the remains of a harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). The workshop, organized by the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators,...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
A team from the Center for Coastal Studies works to free a one-year-old right whale from the fishing ropes wrapped and knotted around its body and flippers. The whale is Kingfisher, #3346 in the North American Right Whale Catalog.
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Sep 20 2012 - 11:45am
Sperm whales have conical teeth on their long, narrow, lower jaw. The teeth fit neatly into sockets in the upper jaw, which has no teeth. This arrangement is a perfect adaptation for slurping up soft-bodied squids—giant or otherwise. The sperm whale is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN's Red List of...
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Aug 2 2012 - 10:51am
Breaching is a behavior seen in some baleen whales, where they launch their entire body out of the water headfirst and land with a large splash.
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Jan 16 2013 - 10:49am
A close up view of Phoenix and the rough patches of skin known as callosities that are found on all North Atlantic right whales. These callosities are inhabited by small amphipods called whale lice and they can be used to identify an individual right whale much like fingerprints. More about the...
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Jan 26 2012 - 11:53am
Sirenians, or seacows, are a group of marine mammals that include manatees and dugongs. Currently, only a single species of seacow is found anywhere in the world. However, the fossil record of seacows, which dates back 50 million years, tells a different story.
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Sep 12 2011 - 11:43am
Offshore Peru, during the Eocene (~56-34 million years ago), showing three archaeocetes (ancient whales), along with a previously described fossil penguin.
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Yankee Whalers: An 1856 Currier & Ives print shows whalers harpooning a right whale. More about whales can be found in our Tale of a Whale photo essay.
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May 7 2012 - 3:54pm
Nick Pyenson, the curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, points to the skull and skeleton of a fossil "toothed" mysticete (baleen whale) on the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in 2009. The skeleton, which is being excavated this spring 2012 by...
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Jul 27 2012 - 2:49pm
A male sperm whale feeding near the surface. Sperm whales are a toothed whale, rather than a baleen whale, and are found throughout the world's oceans.
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Apr 20 2012 - 1:22pm
On April 20, 2010, an explosion on the oil-drilling rig Deepwater Horizon caused the largest marine oil spill in US history, gushing nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil over the course of three months.
In the two years since, researchers have been hard at work studying the impacts of the spill....
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Sep 24 2010 - 12:25pm
Whales swim, but their ancestors walked. Whales are mammals (like us) whose ancestors lived on land. Life probably began in the ocean and then evolved to colonize the land. Yet the whale’s ancestors gradually moved from land to sea, adapting to their circumstances and surroundings. The ocean...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Phoenix was photographed swimming off the coast of Canada in the Bay of Fundy in August 2007. More about the right whale can be found in our Tale of a Whale featured story.
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Apr 24 2012 - 11:28am
Phoenix, the North Atlantic right whale whose replica hangs from the ceiling of the Sant Ocean Hall at the National Museum of Natural History, was sighted with a calf off of Amelia Island in Florida on February 22, 2012.
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
This family tree shows how the ancestors of whales moved gradually from land to sea. Early whales took advantage of abundant marine resources. Baleen whales evolved later as polar climates cooled and marine resources became more concentrated, making filter feeding effective. Learn more at "Did...
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Sep 12 2011 - 2:55pm
These are fossil remains of archaeocetes, ancient whales, from the Paracas Formation of Peru's Pisco Basin. Smithsonian paleobiologist Nicholas D.
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Close-up of a 17th century painting shows how whales were brought ashore for processing and their blubber rendered into marketable oil. More about the right whale can be found in our Tale of a Whale photo essay.
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Jul 27 2012 - 11:00am
Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are a type of toothed whale, best known for their long unicorn-like tusk. The tusk is normally found on male narwhals and is actually a tooth.
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Dec 6 2009 - 10:31pm
Stretching up to 16.8 meters (55 feet) long and weighing up to 62 tons (70 tons), the North Atlantic right whale is one of the world’s largest animals—and one of the most endangered whales. Scientists estimate that between 300-400 individuals remain. Why so few? For generations the right whale was...
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