Do gray whales travel in pods?
4 min read
Asked by: Antoine Zeglinski
The gray whale is one of the animal kingdom’s great migrators. Traveling in groups called pods, some of these giants swim 12,430 miles round-trip from their summer home in Alaskan waters to the warmer waters off the Mexican coast. The whales winter and breed in the shallow southern waters and balmier climate.
How many GREY whales travel in a pod?
two whales
A: Most northbound gray whales travel in pods of two whales.
How do gray whales travel?
In the fall, eastern North Pacific gray whales migrate from their summer feeding grounds, heading south along the coast of North America to spend the winter in their wintering and calving areas off the coast of Baja California, Mexico.
Where do gray whales travel?
Gray whales have the longest known migration of any mammal. They travel 10,000-12,000 miles round trip every year between their winter calving lagoons in the warm waters of Mexico and their summer feeding grounds in the cold Arctic seas.
Do all whales travel in pods?
So it makes sense that most baleen whales are solitary animals that come together only to mate and most toothed whales live in pods ranging in size from 2-50 with pods coming together to form larger pods at times.
How many whales make a pod?
A pod usually consists of whales that have bonded together either because of biological reasons (i.e., a mother baring offspring and raising her child) or through friendships developed between two or more whales. A typical whale pod consists of anywhere from 2 to 30 whales or more in many cases.
What whales travel the furthest?
A gray whale has swum the longest distance ever recorded in a marine vertebrate—more than 16,700 miles—over halfway around the world. The male cetacean, spotted off Namibia in 2013, is the first gray whale ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere.
Do gray whales migrate in groups?
Migration. The gray whale is one of the animal kingdom’s great migrators. Traveling in groups called pods, some of these giants swim 12,430 miles round-trip from their summer home in Alaskan waters to the warmer waters off the Mexican coast. The whales winter and breed in the shallow southern waters and balmier climate
What’s the difference between a gray whale and a humpback whale?
The key differences between a gray whale and a humpback are their physical appearance, diet, habitat, reproduction, and lifespan. Humpback whales weigh more than gray whales and are generally longer. Gray whales are bottom feeders, while humpbacks are not. Furthermore, humpbacks have a wider range than gray whales.
How far do whales travel in a day?
“The speeds that a lot of these whales that make long migrations travel at is often not that impressive,” Calambokidis says. “In other words, they can be just as slow as three to five miles an hour. But the impressive part is they are doing that 24 hours a day. That means they can be covering 100 miles in a day.
What months do GREY whales migrate?
From March through June most gray whales make the journey from their breeding lagoons in Baja California to the Arctic feeding grounds. On this northbound migration, small numbers of gray whales fall out of the migration and stop at various locations along the Oregon coast.
Are GREY whales aggressive?
Gray whales can live to be 70 years and can grow to be up to 50 feet long and 40 tons. They were known as “devil fish” by whalers because they aggressively fight to protect themselves and their calves when attacked.
Is it safe to swim with gray whales?
You could be touching their pups
Generally, swimming with whales is illegal, dangerous and a bad idea to approach this large marine mammals. It is even worse to go close to their calves.
Do GREY whales eat people?
No, whales do not eat people; they primarily eat small aquatic lifeforms such as fish, squid, and krill, and a few dolphin species are even known to eat marine mammals such as seals, sea lions, walruses, and whales. Still, they are not known for consuming or eating people.
