Inside the humpback whale

Longer than a London bus and weighing more than four African elephants, humpback whales are true giants of the ocean. In the harsh conditions of the sea, humpbacks are anatomically adapted to life under the waves. As one of over ten baleen whale species, humpbacks have an interesting way of feeding. Within the whale’s mouth are around 600 baleen plates made from keratin, the same protein that forms our hair and nails. These plates, together with hairs, act like a sieve through which they filter their daily consumption of around one ton of plankton, flushed in by the surrounding water.

As one of the largest mammals on Earth, these whales fill their lungs with air from a dual blowhole at the top of the head. Under the forces and pressures of the deep ocean, in order to prevent damage to an air-filled lung, their ribcages can flex. The same logic is applied to their eyesight. In order to see underwater, it’s thought that the whites of the whale’s eyes are thick and spongy to cope with fluctuating pressures below the surface.

Beneath their blubber, which can be more than 40 centimetres thick after feeding all summer, lies a skeleton displaying unique signs of this whales’ land-based ancestors. Whales walked on land around 45 million years ago, and vestigial bones remain within their bodies, such as the pelvis. Its prehistoric role allowed for the movement of legs long gone in modern-day whales. Other telltale evolutionary remnants in humpback’s bodies are the finger bones within their pectoral fins, which resemble hands.