Brydes+Whales

Bryde's whales are a species of whales found near South Africa. They have large, sleek bodies that are most of the time dark grey and white. However, many people mistake these whales for Sei whales, which are a very similar whale, but not the same. If there are ridges in the whale’s skin by the blowhole, they are Bryde's. If not, Sei. These whales are fairly large in both weight and length. They can weigh up to 90,000 lbs and reach up to 40-55 ft and can live anywhere between 8-13 years. In addition, these whales are unique in some ways. They only ever swim in pairs or independently. They can also eat 1,320-1,450 lbs of food per day.

Their habitat is in more of a tropical or subtropical area. They like any time of warm water region to live in, around 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 20 degrees Celsius. That really is the only place they like to live, warm water areas. The cold is too much for them. However, the smaller species of them might live in slightly colder waters than the larger ones.

No one is positively sure about when these whales mate. They could really mate anytime year round. Their gestation period is from 11 ½ to 12 months. Once the young is born, they weigh around 2000 pounds. They don’t go straight into eating what the parents do, they nurse for around 6 moths, and then they go into eating the food that their parents eat.

These whales have very generic diets for ocean creatures. They eat plankton (like krill and copepods), crustaceans (like red crabs and shrimp), and schooling fish (like anchovies, herring, mackerel, pilchards, and sardines). They don’t really hunt for their food, as other animals would. They just kind of swim around for a little while until they find them and just eat them whole. So they don’t really have to hunt too hard or hide from their prey. They don’t have to scavenge for food either, maybe sometimes but not all of the time like some animals would. They can get the food they need pretty easy. Although, they do have some predators, humans are their only real threat. Most humans don’t harm them intentionally most of the time, because they can mostly be harmed by accidents like ship wrecks and litter. But, Japanese fishermen do hunt these animals frequently, causing endangerment.

No one really knows the population of these whales, only that they are becoming endangered. They are considered the most endangered species, but recent studies show that they may move to be not in as much danger if they are watched carefully and taken care of properly.