Lilljeborg, however, identified it as " Balaenoptera robusta", a species of rorqual. The gray whale was first described as a distinct species by Lilljeborg 1861 based on a subfossil found in the brackish Baltic Sea, apparently a specimen from the now extinct north Atlantic population. The Scrag Whale is near a kin to the Fin-back, but instead of a Fin upon his Back, the Ridge of the Afterpart of his Back is cragged with half a Dozen Knobs or Nuckles he is nearest the right Whale in Figure and for Quantity of Oil his Bone is white, but won't split. Taxonomic history Ī number of 18th century authors described the gray whale as Balaena gibbosa, the "whale with six bosses", apparently based on a brief note by Dudley 1725: The name Eschrichtius gibbosus is sometimes seen this is dependent on the acceptance of a 1777 description by Erxleben. Many other names have been ascribed to the gray whale, including desert whale, devilfish, gray back, mussel digger and rip sack. Although identity between the Atlantic and Pacific populations cannot be proven by anatomical data, its skeleton is distinctive and easy to distinguish from that of all other living whales. Skeletal comparisons showed the Pacific species to be identical to the Atlantic remains in the 1930s, and Gray's naming has been generally accepted since. The living Pacific species was described by Cope as Rhachianectes glaucus in 1869. The subfossil remains of now extinct gray whales from the Atlantic coasts of England and Sweden were used by Gray to make the first scientific description of a species then surviving only in Pacific waters. The common name of the whale comes from its coloration. John Edward Gray placed it in its own genus in 1865, naming it in honour of physician and zoologist Daniel Frederik Eschricht. The American Society of Mammalogists has followed this classification. But other recent DNA analyses have suggested that certain rorquals of the family Balaenopteridae, such as the humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, and fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus, are more closely related to the gray whale than they are to some other rorquals, such as the minke whales. Some recent studies place gray whales as being outside the rorqual clade, but as the closest relatives to the rorquals. The gray whale is traditionally placed as the only living species in its genus and family, Eschrichtius and Eschrichtiidae, but an extinct species was discovered and placed in the genus in 2017, the Akishima whale ( E. However, in the 2010s there have been a number of sightings of gray whales in the Mediterranean Sea and even off Southern hemisphere Atlantic coasts. North Atlantic populations were extirpated (perhaps by whaling) on the European coast before 500 CE, and on the American coast around the late 17th to early 18th centuries. The gray whale is distributed in an eastern North Pacific (North American), and an endangered western North Pacific (Asian), population. This mammal is descended from filter-feeding whales that appeared during the Neogene. It was formerly thought to be the sole living genus in the family Eschrichtiidae, but more recent evidence classifies members of that family in the family Balaenopteridae. The gray whale is the sole living species in the genus Eschrichtius. Gray whales were once called devil fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted. The common name of the whale comes from the gray patches and white mottling on its dark skin. It reaches a length of 14.9 meters (49 ft), a weight of up to 41 tonnes (90,000 lb) and lives between 55 and 70 years, although one female was estimated to be 75–80 years of age. ![]() The gray whale ( Eschrichtius robustus), also known as the grey whale, gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, Korean gray whale, or California gray whale, is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. Eschrichtius gibbosus Van Deinse & Junge, 1937.
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