g a dorsal fin or a dorsal
ridge. The upper jaw is long, narrow, and highly arched. The lips are
similarly highly arched. The top of the head has a series of bumps or
callosities, the largest one of which is known as the "bonnet," on the
upper surface in front of the blowholes. Yellowish-brown lice and, less
frequently, barnacles grow on the callosities. The color and extent of
the callosities varies from one individual to the next.

The two blowholes are widely separated, resulting in the projection of
the blow upward as two distinct spouts. The body is dark on the back,
sometimes black, more often brown or mottled, usually has a region of
white on the chin and belly, and sometimes has numerous small
grayish-white scars of unknown origin. The baleen plates are up to 7.2
feet (2.2 m) long, very narrow, and variable in color from dark brownish
through dark gray to black in color. When the animals swim, mouth agape
near the surface, the baleen sometimes appears pale yellowish gray in
color.

Natural History Notes

Right whales are usually not wary of boats and may often be approached
very closely.

Like sperm and humpback whales, they usually throw their flukes high
into the air when beginning a long dive.

Right whales feed primarily on copepods.

Historically, this whale was nearly exterminated by hunters, who took
advantage of its slow speed and who knew that its carcass floats, to
harvest these animals for their great yield of whalebone and oil. It was
these characteristics which prompted whalers to dub these animals the
"right" whales to kill (as opposed to the ones that were too fast to
catch and sank when killed).

May Be Confused With

The distinct blow of the right whales and their smooth dark back, devoid
of any traces of a dorsal fin, make it unlikely that the species will be
confused with any other large whales except, perhaps, the bowhead whale.
In the event that the expansion of their ranges again causes these two
species to overlap in distribution, they can be distinguished from one
another by the characteristics discussed on p. 49.

If only the flukes are seen as the animal begins a dive, right and
bowhead whales may be distinguished from the other two species of large
whales exhibiting this behavior, the sperm and the humpback, in this
way: the flukes of right and bowhead whales are broad, pointed on the
tips, greatly concave towards a deep fluke notch, and dark below: those
of the sperm w