What is the maximal age a Gray whale reaches?
An adult Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) usually gets as old as 77 years.
Gray whales are around 379 days in the womb of their mother. When born, they weight 500 kg (1102.31 lbs) and measure 4.43 meter (14′ 7″). As a member of the Eschrichtiidae family (genus: Eschrichtius), their offspring is 1 babies per pregnancy. Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 11.84 meter (38′ 11″).
As a reference: Usually, humans get as old as 100 years, with the average being around 75 years. After being carried in the belly of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks), they grow to an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) and weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual.
The gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus), also known as the grey whale, gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, or California gray whale, is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of 14.9 meters (49 ft), a weight of 36 tonnes (40 short tons), and lives between 55 and 70 years. The common name of the whale comes from the gray patches and white mottling on its dark skin. Gray whales were once called devil fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted. The gray whale is the sole living species in the genus Eschrichtius, which in turn is the sole living genus in the family Eschrichtiidae. This mammal descended from filter-feeding whales that appeared at the beginning of the Oligocene, over 30 million years ago.The gray whale is distributed in an eastern North Pacific (North American), and an endangered western North Pacific (Asian), population. North Atlantic populations were extirpated (perhaps by whaling) on the European coast before AD 500, and on the American coast around the late 17th to early 18th centuries. Even so, on May 8, 2010, a sighting of a gray whale was confirmed off the coast of Israel in the Mediterranean Sea, leading some scientists to think they might be repopulating old breeding grounds that have not been visited for centuries. In May and June 2013, a gray whale was sighted off the coast of Namibia – the first confirmed in the Southern Hemisphere. The round-trip journey of one gray whale has set a new record for the longest mammal migration, covering a distance of more than 22,000 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean. Her migration has shown new insight into how endangered species are making drastic changes in their life style.
Animals that reach the same age as Gray whale
With an average age of 77 years, Gray whale are in good companionship of the following animals:
- Sperm whale usually reaching 77 years
- Short-finned pilot whale usually reaching 63 years
- African bush elephant usually reaching 80 years
- Bryde’s whale usually reaching 72 years
- Berardius usually reaching 71 years
- Dugong usually reaching 70 years
- Sei whale usually reaching 74 years
- Horse usually reaching 62 years
- Asian elephant usually reaching 80 years
Animals with the same number of babies Gray whale
The same number of babies at once (1) are born by:
- Yellow-footed rock-wallaby
- Dian’s tarsier
- Indri
- Asian golden cat
- Mantled howler
- Moonshine shrew
- Pygmy slow loris
- Kob
- Rwanda African mole-rat
- Bonnet macaque
Weighting as much as Gray whale
A fully grown Gray whale reaches around 27312.01 kg (60212.61 lbs). So do these animals:
- Sei whale weighting 22103.13 kilos (48729 lbs) on average
- Pygmy right whale weighting 32000 kilos (70547.84 lbs) on average
- North Atlantic right whale weighting 23000 kilos (50706.26 lbs) on average
- Humpback whale weighting 30000 kilos (66138.6 lbs) on average
- Southern right whale weighting 23000 kilos (50706.26 lbs) on average
Animals as big as a Gray whale
Those animals grow as big as a Gray whale:
- Sperm whale with 12.18 meter (40′ 0″)
- Bowhead whale with 12.2 meter (40′ 1″)
- North Atlantic right whale with 13.92 meter (45′ 9″)
- Southern right whale with 14.15 meter (46′ 6″)
- Humpback whale with 12.87 meter (42′ 3″)
- Bryde’s whale with 13.85 meter (45′ 6″)