Photo: Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Description
- 📏 12 to 16 m
- 🌊 open water and around the islands, from July to November
- 🛡️ Least Concern (IUCN)
The humpback whale (tohorā) comes every year to spend the austral winter in the warm waters of Polynesia to breed and give birth, before heading back to Antarctica to feed on krill. Males sing long, complex songs, taken up by the whole population. The calf, which drinks milk for months, is often accompanied by its mother close to the coasts of Moorea or Rurutu.
Legend
Among the Maori of New Zealand, a Polynesian people cousin to the Tahitians, tradition tells that the ancestor Paikea arrived on the back of a whale: the whale holds a sacred place in the imagination of the Pacific. In French Polynesia, all marine mammals have been protected since 2002 by a sanctuary covering the entire exclusive economic zone.
Source: Maori tradition (Paikea); marine mammal sanctuary of French Polynesia (2002)
Tahitian names: La Poste de Polynésie (circular on cetaceans). French name: Baleine à bosse.
📸 Add your photo
Did you meet this animal? Share your photo. It will be checked automatically (only photos of marine animals are published).
