^{ID: A large, slender whale glides through clear blue water toward the bottom right of the frame. They are dark gray on top, with a faint, white chevron mark on their back, just below their short, paddle-like fins. The front end of their head is sharply pointed and the underside of their jaw is light gray.}

Welcome to Whale Tales and Glitter Issue #10 . Are you reading this on the web or did you get it as a forward? If you Subscribe https://www.whaletalesandglitter.com/ you’ll get all the whale-y goodness sent right to your inbox. If you’d like to support Whale Tales and Glitter there’s now a ko-fi page https://ko-fi.com/katepennington 

All the Fin whales! 

A few months back I saw a video of hundreds of Fin whales feeding in Antarctica. The video was jaw-droppingly cool. A while later I found another video of another enormous aggregation of Fin whales from a few years earlier. While reviewing that video Youtube helpfully offered me a one of a group in Norway that got up close and personal with a pair of Fin whales - while snorkeling with Orca! The videos kept coming until I knew I had to share at least some of them with you… So... Welcome to the Fin whale appreciation edition of Whale Tales and Glitter! 

Who are the Fin whales? 

^{ID Two curved, log-like shapes, rest at the surface of slightly choppy, gray-green water. Two, tall, pale columns of mist (their blows) rise above each whale.} 

Fin whales are the second largest whale on Earth, averaging 80 feet in length (20 feet shorter than the average Blue whale). They can weigh between 40 and 80 tons and eat as much as 2 tons of food daily. Fin whales have long, slender bodies with a long thin ridge along the back which gave them one of their nicknames: Finbacks.  Fin whales are also very fast swimmers, earning them the additional name “Grey hounds of the Sea.” They are mostly gray on top and white on the bottom, which makes them hard to spot until you are fairly close to them. Once near by, you might be able to spot the chevron markings on their backs, starting behind their blow holes. Researches have discovered that these markings are specific enough to use as identification of individual Fin whales.

^{ID: A black and white illustration of two Fin whales. One faces left, the other right.They are both long and sleek, with narrow, softly pointed ‘noses’, thick tail stocks that end abruptly in small triangularly shaped tail flukes. Their bodies are mostly dark gray, with some lighter gray on their underside. On the top of their head, just past the join of their jaw, sits their eye. The artist’s watermark “Ida Eriksson” is written in the middle of the screen over part of each body}.

Fin whale’s chins are two toned. Light on the right side and dark on the left. You can see it in the illustration above and more clearly in the image here of the dark side, and further down of the light side.  

^{ID: Seen from above, a large Fin whale lunges through dark green water, taking up most of the photo. The whale’s mouth is open wide. The underside of its upper jaw is light gray with a hint of the black. The lower jaw is dark along the jaw line, extending down until the skin goes light again where the skin bells outward. Vertical lines of dark gray alternate with the white as the whale’s throat expands to contain water and fish.} 

Fin whales are filter feeders. They use baleen plates made of keratin, that hang from their upper jaw to catch krill and small fish. To feed, a Fin whale will identify a bait ball of food and swim through it, mouth open. Fins and Blues tend to roll onto their side as they complete their lunge, as in the image above. To complete the feeding they close their mouths and press the water out through the baleen plates, keeping their meal inside and ready to swallow. 

Baleen plates vary in width, length, and color depending on the whale and how they feed. The image below is of a section of Gray whale baleen. You can see the plates stacked one next to the other. They hang from the jaw bone by the wide section at the top and slope down to points at the bottom. As the whale feeds, the exterior of the plates will fray and pieces may fall off. 

^{ID: A piece of Gray whale baleen, light tan and about a foot and a half long. It is vaguely triangularly shaped, with both long edges curved a bit like a claw. One pale hand holds the baleen at the top, while a second touches the outer side where it’s frayed.}

Super-pods

Fin whales are found in all the major oceans of the world. Most of the time they are seen in groups of one to seven individuals. Calves will travel with their mother for about a year and on occasion they will meet up with a few other whales to feed. Massive aggregations or Super-pods, with 50 or more whales, are less common. Or at least we thought they were. There’s growing speculation that  some of our assumptions about the behaviors of cetaceans, and the large, filer feeding, whales in particular, might be based on only getting to see them at post-industrial whaling numbers. 

Fin whales can eat up to 2 tons or 4,000 lbs / 1,800 kg of food per day. The more whales feeding at the same time, the more food is needed. Antarctica is one of only a few places in the world where the conditions are right to produce enough food for 100 - 200 Fins let alone all other baleen whales, the sea birds, smaller whales, seals, and penguins who come to the party. This is why the first two videos below were taken in Antarctica. 

Super-pod One, 2026

^{ID: Over 20 blow spouts, tall white columns of atomized air, are visible above choppy, dark gray water. A layer of gray clouds hoovers at the top, with a hint of blue beneath and more gray water in the distance.} 

In February of 2026 photographer / videographer Jason Edwards traveled to Antarctica to photograph wildlife during the Austral Summer. He saw alot of wonderful life and got a huge surprise, a super-pod, of possibly as many as 100 Fin whales. The video is up on both Facebook and Instagram.

Super-pod Two, 2022

^{ID: Seen from overhead, a group of five Fin whales feeding in very clear, blue water. Four of the whales are gliding on their sides. Their bodies are dark gray on the top half, white on the bottom. One has its mouth open, with the skin of its lower jaw is stretched out to take in its meal. Three other whales have their mouths closed and their lower jaw skin is stretched out to varying degrees. The fifth whale is near the upper right and appears mostly as a gray shadow.} 

Four years earlier, National Geographic photographer Bertie Gregory, was working on a series for Disney. For the first episode he and the crew traveled to Antarctica to film Fin whales as they traveled through the Drake Passage (the only access from the Southern tip of South America, and a notoriously rough ride to cross). While the process did not go smoothly, it was worth the effort as they came across a super-pod of approximately 300 Fin whales feeding along with other wildlife. 

Trailer on Youtube

Disney+ Original series from National Geographic, “Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory” Episode One

Amazing Fin whales (small group), 2023

^{ID: Two long, slender, Fin whales in dark gray water. The whale on the left has surfaced and mist from its blow drifts as a white column above its back. White caps roil where their back rises from the water. The second whale is to the right, visible only as a roil of white water moving parallel to the first whale.} 

While not a super-pod, this video is wild and amazing in its own right.  InsiderDivers, a tour group in Norway that takes people out to see Orca, and other whales as availible, in the wild. The groups are escorted by trained divers and video/photography team(s). On this occasion the tour started out as expected, with Orca feeding on a bait ball of small fish. Then the unexpected happened. Two Fin whales, traveling at high speed, lunged through the bait ball, mouths open, all their attention on their lunch. The thing is… there are two humans in their path, next to impossible for the Fin whales to see, given that their eyes are on the sides of their head, and the humans are small. 

^{ID: The screen is almost entirely filled by a Fin whale’s jaw. The whale is moving upwards from left to right, towards the corner. The top of its head is dark gray. The jaw is slightly ajar and one eye is partially visible. The underside of the jaw is pale shaded blue-gray by the water. Vertical lines flow from just under the jaw down to the left and out of frame.}

This moment is after the whale has engulfed its meal and its jaws are almost closed. In the upper part of the image, where the gap between the jaw is narrow, are tightly packed, vertical lines. These are the baleen plates that allow the whale to strain out the water. 

^{ID: A whale and two humans in dark water. At the top left of the image is the dark gray curve of the whale’s back. A froth of white marks the line between whale and ocean. Just ahead of the whale, to the right of the whale is a small, dark, human blob, with another, slightly larger dark, human blob on the right edge of the image.  At the bottom, in the center, is a just barely distinguishable, dark paddle shape.}  

This image is a minute or so later when the humans and the whale are at the surface. The whale has come up for a breath and is now beginning its dive back into the depths, probably for another run at the fish. There’s a moment between these two images where we can see that one of the humans is so close she actually pushes off the edge of the whale’s chin to get out of the way. 

Watch at Youtube Be aware that parts of this video are intense with action that is sometimes blurry and hard to follow. None of it is graphic. No mammals are harmed, we don’t even see the Orca eating the fish. It’s also astonishingly cool. I’ve watched it at least four times! 

Next up: Come Visit Shed Aquarium with Me in June!

^{ID: Kate, a white woman with short brown hair, wearing a burgundy top, jeans, and a pale mask, stands with one hand on her hip, the other on a rail. Behind her is a skeleton of an Orca which has been hung from the ceiling to be eye level with viewers on a walkway. Behind both are floor to ceiling windows showing other areas of the facility.} 

I’ll be in Chicago from June 2^nd - 8^th to attend SFWA’s Nebula Conference and I’m going to the aquarium! I’ve had Shedd Aquarium on my list of places to visit, so this is a perfect opportunity. 

I’ll be going to the Shedd on Tuesday June 3^rd. I’m hoping to do their Must See Tour for a look behind the scene, take in the exhibits from the public side, have some lunch at some point, then head back to the hotel to fall over.  It’s always fun to go with friends, so if you’d like to join me, send me an email so we can plot times and transport. 

Naming of Whales: Balaenoptera physalus 

^{ID: A black and white in line drawing of a Fin whale showing the skull, small pectoral fins, ribcage, and spine.} 

Balaenoptera translates to ‘whale fin’ or ‘whale wing’. Balaeno comes from the latin word baleen which means whale, and pterá, the Greek word for fin or wing. The second part physalus is its  species name and means "blows" in Greek, i.e. their tall exhalations at the surface.

So presumably the name in English is: Whale fin, blows. Or Whale wing, blows. 

Spotlight on: Deep Sea Explorer Dr. Dawn Wright

^{ID: Dr. Wright, a light skinned Black woman with shoulder length brown hair is smiling at the camera. She’s wearing, dangling earrings and a faded denim shirt.} 

Dr. Dawn Wright is an American Geologist and Oceanographer. She pioneered the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in the study of  seafloor mapping and marine geology. She is first Black woman to dive in the Alvin submersible, operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and the first African American to dive to Challenger Deep. She is currently the Chief Scientist at Esri, the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. 

Born April 15, 1961, Dr. Wright grew up on Maui, Hawaii. She fell in love with the rock and lava formations of her home island, was fascinated with maps, all the stories of Jacques Coustea, so it probably didnt surprise many people that she knew from an early age she wanted to be a scientist. The path to her goal included a B.S. in Geology from Wheaton College, M.S. in Oceanography from Texas A&M University, time spent as a marine technician for the Ocean Drilling Program - an international effort to study the structure of oceanic basins, and getting her Ph.D. in Physical Geography and Marine Geology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

Her combined interests in rocks and the ocean took Dr. Wright into some very deep places to study underwater fissures in the Earth’s crust were magma and seawater flow and interact, creating underwater volcanos and Hydrothermal Vents. As part of her doctorate work in 1995 she used early GIS technology to analyze the data she collected while going ~1.5 miles deep in the submersible Alvin along the Juan de Fuca Ridge. In 2022 served as mission sonar specialist on a dive to Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench,  the deepest known point on Earth at 10,909 meters. 

In addition to helping map a better understand of the ocean, Dr. Wright and ESRI are using GIS to develop tools to see how temperature and salinity impact coastal regions, and others that allow communities, especially communities of color, to collect and use GIS data for their benefit. 

She’s also a Lego Geek 🙂

Dr. Wright’s home page

Dr. Wright’s book Mapping the Deep: Innovation, Exploration, and the Dive of a Lifetime

That’s all whaley goodness for now,

Kate