Bryde's Whale

Whale, hello there!

The name is pronounced 'Broo-dess' whale after Johan Bryde, a Norwegian who built the first whaling stations in Durban, South Africa in the early 20th century.

Bryde's whale is the only baleen whales to spend their entire lives in tropical and subtropical waters, these great whales are over 40 tonnes of sheer awesomeness. The long and slender bodies of Bryde’s whales are a smoky blue-grey color and often marbled with scars caused by parasites and cookie-cutter sharks.

Each whale has a sickle-shaped dorsal fin about two-thirds of the way back along their body, and unlike other baleen whales, has three parallel ridges on the top of their head that make up a quarter of their entire body length.

Bryde's whales are filter feeders and they have between 40 and 70 throat pleats that allow their mouths to expand and 250 to 410 coarse baleen plates to sieve their food from seawater. As with the other large baleen whales, Bryde’s whales eat comparatively microscopic prey, mostly consisting of plankton, krill and copepods (tiny crustaceans). They also feast on bigger crustaceans such as crabs and shrimps, as well as a variety of small schooling fish.

Bryde's whales face many threats from human activities. With so little known about exactly how many different species there are, and how small some populations may be, it is vital we protect these gentle giants!

N&W 🐋