Fin whale facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids Fin whale

A fin whale surfacing in Greenland

Size compared to an average human
Conservation status
Vulnerable (IUCN 3.1)
Near Threatened (IUCN 3.1)(Europe)
Scientific classification
Genus:	Balaenoptera
Species:	physalus
Subspecies
B. p. physalus B. p. quoyi

Fin whale range
Synonyms
List Balaena physalus Linnaeus, 1758 Balaena boops Linnaeus, 1758 Balaena antiquorum Fischer, 1829 Balaena quoyi Fischer, 1829 Balaena musculus Companyo, 1830 Balaenoptera rorqual Lacépède, 1804 Balaenoptera gibbar Lacépède, 1804 Balaenoptera mediterraneensis Lesson, 1828 Balaenoptera jubartes Dewhurst, 1834 Balaenoptera australis Gray, 1846 Balaenoptera patachonicus Burmeister, 1865 Balaenoptera velifera Cope, 1869 Physalis vulgaris Fleming, 1828 Rorqualus musculus F. Cuvier, 1836 Pterobalaena communis Van Beneden, 1857

The fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) is a huge baleen whale (which means it has special plates in its mouth instead of teeth to filter food from the water). The fin whale is also called the finback, finner, razorback, common rorqual, and herring whale. They live in oceans all around the world.

Known scientifically as Balaenoptera physalus, the fin whale is a truly remarkable creature of the deep blue sea. It belongs to a group of whales called rorquals, which also includes the famous Humpback whale and the giant Blue whale. These whales are known for having special pleats or grooves on their throats that expand like an accordion when they eat.

What do they look like?
How big do they get?
Where do they live?
Diet
How do they communicate?
Life cycle
History with humans: Whaling
Challenges they face today
Conservation efforts
Interesting facts about fin whales
Images for kids
See also

What do they look like?

Fin whale skeleton

Fin whales often travel in pairs.

A fin whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, showing characteristic backswept dorsal fin

Fin whale arching for a deep dive

Fin whales have a long, slender body that helps them glide through the water quickly. They are usually brownish-gray on top and have a lighter, sometimes white, underside. This color pattern, called countershading, helps them blend in with the ocean from above and below.

One of the most interesting things about their appearance is the color pattern on their head. The left side of their head is usually dark gray, but the right side has a mix of light and dark markings. Their right lower jaw is often white or light gray, and this lighter color can sometimes extend up towards their eye. Scientists aren't completely sure why they have this uneven coloring, but it's a unique feature.

Fin whales have a tall, curved fin on their back, located towards their tail. They also have long, pointed flippers and a broad tail fluke. Instead of teeth, they have hundreds of baleen plates hanging from their upper jaw. These plates are made of a material similar to your fingernails and are used to filter tiny food from the water.

How big do they get?

At Porcupine Seabight, South West Ireland

Fin whale showing colouring on right side

At Porcupine Seabight, South West Ireland, showing chevrons between its flippers

Aerial view of a fin whale, showing V-shaped chevron

Fin whales are truly enormous. They are the second-largest animal on Earth today.

Length: The biggest fin whales ever measured were about 26 meters (that's about 85 feet!) long. That's longer than two school buses parked end-to-end!
Weight: They can weigh a lot, too! The heaviest ones recorded were between 77 and 81 tonnes (that's like 85 to 89 short tons). Imagine the weight of many, many elephants combined!

On average, adult male fin whales are about 21 meters (69 feet) long, and females are a bit longer and heavier, averaging around 22 meters (72 feet).

Where do they live?

Fin whales are found in almost all the major oceans around the world. They live in waters from the cold areas near the North and South Poles all the way to the warmer, tropical regions. However, they usually stay away from areas completely covered by ice and smaller, enclosed seas.

They seem to like cooler and temperate waters the most, where they can find plenty of food. While they are found globally, scientists recognize that there are different groups, or subspecies, of Fin whales living in different oceans, like the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and the Southern Hemisphere.

Fin whales are known to migrate, which means they travel long distances during the year. They often move from colder feeding areas in the summer to warmer areas in the winter, possibly for breeding, though their exact travel routes are still being studied by scientists.

Diet

Fin whales are filter feeders, and their diet mainly consists of small ocean creatures. They eat:

Small schooling fish: Like herring or anchovies.
Small squid: Tiny squid that live in groups.
Crustaceans: This includes tiny shrimp-like animals called krill and even smaller ones called copepods.

They eat by swimming fast with their mouths open, taking in huge amounts of water filled with their prey. Then, they close their mouths and push the water back out through their baleen plates. The baleen acts like a giant sieve, trapping the food inside their mouth so they can swallow it. A single fin whale can eat a lot of food in a day, sometimes up to 1,800 kilograms (about 4,000 pounds)!

How do they communicate?

Overhead view of a fin whale feeding

Fin whale lunge feeding at the surface

The whaling historian Sigurd Risting sitting on the baleen bristles of a fin whale landed at a whaling station in the Shetland Islands (1912)

"The Finback" (Balaenoptera velifera, Cope) from Charles Melville Scammon's Marine Mammals of the North-western coast of North America (1874)

A immature fin whale in distress off national park of Caesarea Maritima

The fin whale is listed on both Appendix I and Appendix II of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS). Like many other whales, fin whales make sounds to communicate with each other. The sounds made by fin whales and blue whales are some of the lowest-frequency sounds made by any animal.

They make long, loud, low-pitched pulses.
These sounds are often in a range that is too low for most humans to hear easily (below 20 hertz).
The sounds can travel very far through the ocean, sometimes hundreds of miles.

Scientists believe these sounds are important for communication, especially between males during the breeding season. Interestingly, when scientists first recorded these sounds, they were so unusual that they didn't realize they were made by whales. They even wondered if they were caused by equipment problems or something else entirely.

Life cycle

Fin whales reproduce in warmer waters, usually during the winter months. A baby fin whale, called a calf, grows inside its mother for about 11 to 12 months.

When a calf is born, it stays with its mother for about a year, drinking her milk and learning how to find food and navigate the ocean.

Fin whales grow up over many years. Females usually become ready to have calves when they are between 6 and 12 years old. They reach their full adult size when they are between 25 and 30 years old. Fin whales can live for a long time, at least 94 years, and some might even live much longer.

History with humans: Whaling

For a long time, fin whales were hunted by humans. In the past, it was difficult to catch them because they were so fast and often sank after being killed. However, with the invention of faster ships and more advanced hunting tools like harpoons that exploded, it became possible to hunt them on a large scale.

Fin whales were hunted mainly for their blubber (fat), which was turned into oil, and their baleen, which was used for various products. Sadly, this hunting, called whaling, happened so much that the number of fin whales in the ocean dropped dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of fin whales were caught in the 20th century alone.

Because their numbers became so low, international groups like the International Whaling Commission (IWC) eventually put rules in place to stop or limit the hunting of fin whales in most parts of the world. Commercial whaling of fin whales was banned in the Southern Hemisphere in 1976 and in the North Atlantic in 1987.

Today, most commercial hunting of fin whales is stopped, although some limited hunting is allowed for research or by certain groups for traditional purposes in specific areas, like Greenland. Japan, which had previously conducted whaling for research, left the IWC in 2019 and resumed commercial whaling, though they have not reported catching fin whales recently as of May 2025.

Challenges they face today

Even though large-scale commercial whaling has mostly stopped, fin whales still face challenges in the ocean:

Ship Strikes: Because they are so large and live in areas where there is a lot of ship traffic, fin whales can sometimes be hit by large ships. This can cause serious injury or even death. This is a significant problem in some busy shipping lanes.
Entanglement in Fishing Gear: Fin whales can sometimes get tangled up in fishing nets or lines, which can make it difficult for them to swim, eat, or breathe.
Ocean Noise: The ocean is becoming a noisier place due to things like shipping, military sonar, and underwater construction. This noise can make it hard for whales to communicate with each other, find food, and navigate.
Pollution: Like other ocean animals, fin whales can be affected by pollution in the water, including plastics and chemicals, which can make them sick.
Climate Change: Changes in ocean temperature and currents due to climate change can affect where the whales' food lives, making it harder for them to find enough to eat.

Conservation efforts

Because their populations were so reduced by whaling, fin whales are still considered a vulnerable species by groups like the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This means they are at risk of becoming endangered if threats are not managed.

Efforts are being made to help fin whale populations recover. These include:

International rules: The bans and limits on commercial whaling set by the IWC and other agreements help protect them from being overhunted.
Protected areas: Some areas of the ocean are designated as protected habitats for whales.
Research and monitoring: Scientists continue to study fin whales to understand their populations, migration patterns, and the threats they face. This information helps guide conservation efforts.
Reducing ship strikes: In some busy areas, efforts are being made to reduce collisions between ships and whales, such as changing shipping lanes or speed limits.
Reducing fishing gear entanglement: Developing fishing gear that is less likely to entangle whales is another area of focus.

Thanks to these efforts, fin whale populations have been slowly increasing in some areas since the end of large-scale whaling. However, it will take a long time for their numbers to fully recover to what they were before whaling began.

Interesting facts about fin whales

It is the second largest animal on Earth after the blue whale.
This whale is sometimes called the "greyhound of the sea" because of its fast swimming speed; it can swim up to 23 mph (37 km/hr) in short bursts.
A newborn fin whale measures about 6.0–6.5 m (19.7–21.3 ft) in length and weighs about 1,800 kilograms (4,000 lb).
The vocalizations of blue and fin whales are the lowest-frequency sounds made by any animal.
Fin whale songs can penetrate over 2,500 m (8,200 ft) below the sea floor and seismologists can use those song waves to assist in underwater surveys.
The only known predator of the fin whale is the killer whale.
They often swim in groups of 6 to 10 animals, which is more social than some other large whales.
One whale can consume up to 1,800 kg (4,000 lb) of food a day, leading scientists to conclude that the whale spends about three hours a day feeding to meet its energy requirements, roughly the same as humans.
They can dive very deep to find food, sometimes over 400 meters (about 1,300 feet).
In the 20th century, the fin whalewas primarily hunted for its blubber, oil, and baleen. Around 704,000 fin whales were caught in Antarctic whaling operations alone between 1904 and 1975.