Whale
Species Spotlight

NOAA Species Directory

Check out the NOAA Fisheries' Species Directory to learn more information about each whale species you are interested in!

Baird's Beaked Whale

Baird's beaked whales, sometimes called giant bottlenose whales, are the largest members of the beaked whale family. Named after renowned naturalist Spencer F. Baird, they can be found throughout the North Pacific Ocean and adjacent seas and in U.S. waters off the West Coast from California to Alaska

Beluga Whale

Beluga whales are known for their white color and range of vocal sounds, earning them the title of "canary of the sea." They are very social animals, forming groups to hunt, migrate, and interact with each other.

Blainville's Beaked Whale

Blainville's beaked whales are little-known members of the beaked whale family, Ziphiidae. Sometimes known as the "dense-beaked whale," this species lives in tropical to temperate waters worldwide.

Blue Whale

Blue whales are the largest animals ever to live on our planet. Blue whales are found in all ocean basins, except the Arctic Ocean. There are five currently recognized subspecies of blue whales.

Bowhead Whale

Bowhead whales are one of the few whale species that reside almost exclusively in Arctic and subarctic waters experiencing seasonal sea ice coverage, primarily between 60° and 75° north latitude. Of all large whales, the bowhead is the most adapted to life in icy water.

Bryde's Whale

Bryde's (pronounced "broodus") whales are members of the baleen whale family. They are considered one of the "great whales," or rorquals.

Cuvier's Beaked Whale

Cuvier's beaked whales, sometimes called "goose-beaked whales," are members of the beaked whale family. They are one of the most frequently sighted species of beaked whales in the world.

Dwarf Sperm Whale

The dwarf sperm whale is a toothed whale named after the waxy substance—spermaceti—found in its head. This organ is a sac of oil that helps the whales produce sound.

False Killer Whale

False killer whales are social animals found globally in all tropical and subtropical ocean basins and generally in deep offshore waters. The false killer whale's entire body is black or dark gray, although lighter areas may occur ventrally (on its underside) between the flippers or on the sides of the head.

Fin Whale

The fin whale is the second-largest whale species on earth, second only to the blue whale. It is found throughout the world's ocean. It gets its name from an easy-to-spot fin on its back, near its tail.

Gervais' Beaked Whale

Gervais' beaked whales are little known members of the beaked whale family, Ziphiidae. Sometimes called the "Antillean" or "Gulf Stream beaked whale," this species prefers deep tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate waters of the Atlantic Ocean but is occasionally found in colder temperate seas.

Gray Whale

Gray whales earned the nickname "devil fish" because of their aggressive reactions when harpooned.

Humpback Whale

Humpback whales are a favorite of whale watchers―they are often active, jumping out of the water, and slapping the surface with their pectoral fins or tails.

Killer Whale

The killer whale, also known as orca, is the ocean's top predator. It is the largest member of the Delphinidae family, or dolphins.

Long-Finned Pilot Whale

Long-finned pilot whales are very social, living in large schools of hundreds of animals separated into close-knit pods of 10 to 20 individuals.

Longman's Beaked Whale

Longman's beaked whales, sometimes known as "tropical bottlenose whales" or "Indo-Pacific beaked whales," are one of the rarest and least known members of the beaked whale family.

Melon-Headed Whale

Melon-headed whales are a robust small whale found primarily in deep, tropical waters worldwide. They are social animals and often occur in groups of hundreds to over thousands of individuals.

Minke Whale

Minke whales are members of the baleen or "great" whale family and are the smallest of the rorquals.

Narwhal

Narwhals are found in the Arctic Ocean. Generally male narwhals have a tooth that grows into a long clockwise-spiraled tusk, resembling a unicorn horn.

Northern Bottlenose Whale

Northern bottlenose whales are the largest members of the beaked whale family in the North Atlantic Ocean, where they prefer cold, deep, temperate to sub-arctic oceanic waters.

Pygmy Killer Whale

Despite its common name, the pygmy killer whale is a small member of the oceanic dolphin family. They are often confused with false killer whales and melon-headed whale

Pygmy Sperm Whale

Pygmy sperm whales are toothed whales named after the waxy substance—spermaceti—found in their heads.

Rice's Whale

Rice's whales are members of the baleen whale family Balaenopteridae. With likely fewer than 100 individuals remaining, Rice's whales are one of the most endangered whales in the world.

Sei Whale

Sei whales occur in subtropical, temperate, and subpolar waters around the world. Often found with pollock in Norway, the name "sei" comes from the Norwegian word for pollock, "seje."

Short-Finned Pilot Whale

Short-finned pilot whales are found globally in tropical and temperate ocean basins. They are one of two species of pilot whale, along with the long-finned pilot whale.

Southern Right Whales

The Southern right whale is found throughout the Southern Hemisphere.

Sowerby's Beaked Whale

Sowerby's beaked whales, sometimes known as the "North Atlantic beaked whale," are little known members of the beaked whale family, Ziphiidae.

Sperm Whale

Sperm whales are the largest of the toothed whales and have one of the widest global distributions of any marine mammal species.

Stejneger's Beaked Whale

Stejneger's beaked whales, sometimes known as the "Bering Sea beaked whale" or "saber-toothed whale," are little known members of the beaked whale family (Ziphiidae).

True's Beaked Whale

True's beaked whales are little known members of the beaked whale family, Ziphiidae. They can be found in deep, warm, temperate waters of the North Atlantic Ocean as well as at least two other areas in the Southern Hemisphere.