Beluga

• Status: Safe
• Arctic seas and estuaries of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia

Numbers

Weight

2600 lbfemales 1,500 to 2,600 lb, males 2,400 to 3,500 lb

Length

18 ftmales up to 18 ft, females 13 ft

Lifespan

50 yearsmaximum reported lifespan

Depth

2000 fttypically hunts at 1,000 feet, can dive twice as deep

Breath-hold

20 minutestypical dive lasts 3 to 5 minutes

Documented calls

11 different callswhistles, squeaks, chirps, trills, and bell-like tones

Ten fun facts

1. 01

   the name comes from the Russian word beloye, meaning white, but calves are born gray or dark brown and lighten over time.

2. 02

   its neck vertebrae are not fused together, so the beluga can turn its head sideways and even change facial expressions.

3. 03

   its thyroid gland is proportionally three times larger than that of a horse, supporting a very fast metabolism in cold waters.

4. 04

   unlike most other whales, the beluga is able to swim backward easily without needing to turn its body around first.

5. 05

   a beluga has between thirty-four and forty teeth inside its mouth, with eight to ten on each side of every jaw.

6. 06

   it sometimes spits water at people and animals, which is likely the same behavior it uses to uncover prey in seafloor sand.

7. 07

   its tail fin never stops growing throughout its life and becomes increasingly curved as the animal gets older over the years.

8. 08

   beluga bones discovered in Vermont in 1849, over one hundred miles inland, are now the official state fossil of Vermont.

9. 09

   the navies of both the United States and Russia have trained belugas to assist in underwater mine clearance in Arctic seas.

10. 10

    scientists estimate about one hundred thousand belugas live in the wild, with around forty thousand in the Beaufort Sea alone.

The quiz answers

The first one is the question printed in your book: here is the answer. The other four are extra.

Try it yourself

Data from Wikidata (Q132072) and Wikipedia (Beluga whale).