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    Eschrichtius – Gray whale

    Once called ‘devil fish’ by whalers due to their fighting behavior when hunted

    They earn their common name by having grey patches and white mottling on their dark skin. Instead of a dorsal fin, they have a series of bumps along the dorsal ridge on the last third of their back. Interestingly, they have two blowholes on top of their head, which creates a heart-shaped blow at the surface when the wind is calm.

    The Gray whale makes the furthest migration known by any mammal. Each spring and autumn, they migrate from their summer feeding water in the Arctic to the warm equatorial lagoons where the females give birth. The major threats to their population are increased risk of entanglement in fishing nets, pollution, and collisions with ships.