Other Names: Greenland Right Whale, Arctic Whale, Arctic Right Whale, Great Polar Whale

Description: The Bowhead whale was named after its distinctive bow-shaped skull, which is enormous; about 40% of total body length.

The Bowhead has a smooth back with no dorsal fin, hump or ridge. It is generally black but with a white or ochreous chin patch and some individuals have a light grey band on the underside of the tail stock around its thinnest part. The skin is quite smooth with no callosities. Bowheads have the longest baleen plates of any species, they are dark grey or black, they may have a whitish edge, and they appear iridescent green. As with the right whales there are no baleen plates at the front of the mouth and there are no throat grooves. There are two blowholes which are widely separated, giving a V-shaped blow that rises to a height of 7m (23ft). The tail flukes have a distinct notch, are very wide and can equal almost half the body length. The flippers are broad and paddle shaped but much narrower and shorter than those of the right whales.

Distribution: Bowheads are circumpolar in distribution, confined to the Arctic, and associated with ice. There appear to be five separate populations. One, containing most of the world population is concentrated in the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Other populations exist in the Sea of Okhotsk, the Davis Straight and Baffin Bay, Hudson Bay and a relict population hangs on in Greenland and Barents Seas. Bowheads migrate in response to changes in the extent of the sea ice, north in summer, and south in winter. Mating and calving occurs in spring and early summer during the early stages of the migration northeast. This migration occurs in three or four pulses, close to the coast through the Bering Strait into the Chukchi Sea and then past Point Barrow, Alaska, into the Beaufort Sea.