---
title: Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)
scientific_name: Megaptera novaeangliae
common_name: Humpback Whale
taxon: Whales
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-25T18:43:01.871Z
updated: 2026-08-14T11:57:50.587Z
tags: Humpback Whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, Whales, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/mammals/whales/humpback-whale
---

# Humpback Whale (*Megaptera novaeangliae*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Whales (*Balaenopteridae*)
- **Size:** up to 17 m
- **Weight:** 35 T
- **Depth:** 0-200 m
- **Diet:** Filter feeder
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Very Rare
- **Habitat:** Open water; a rare visitor to this sea rather than a resident
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer, Gonochoric
- **CITES:** Appendix I
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- enormous white flippers, up to a third of the body length, longer than any other whale's
- knobbly bumps on the head and jaw, each with a single hair
- raises the tail fluke clear of the water when diving, pattern unique to each animal
- length up to 17 m

Up to 17 m (56 ft) and 30 tonnes, with flippers a third as long as the body - proportionally the longest limbs of any animal - and a head studded with knobs, each growing a single hair. Diving, it lifts the tail clear of the water, and the black and white pattern underneath identifies the individual for life.

The males sing. A song is a structured sequence of phrases repeated for hours, all the males in a population sing the same one, and it changes through the season while they change with it. Occasionally a song from a neighboring population arrives and replaces the local one entirely within a season - a cultural wave, moving across an ocean, in a species where nobody is teaching anybody deliberately.

Feeding is engineering. Groups blow curtains of bubbles around a school of fish, driving it into a tight column, and then rise through it with mouths open. Which animal blows and which herds is consistent within a group, and the technique differs between regions.

In this sea a humpback is an exceptional record rather than a species you go to see. The nearest regular population is in the northern Indian Ocean, and the handful of reports from here are animals that took a wrong turn through the strait.

## Also known as

- **English:** bunch whale, Rorqual A Bosse, hump, humpback whale
- **Arabic:** جمل البحر, حوت أحدب, حوت سنامي
- **Hebrew:** לווייתן גדול סנפיר, לווייתן גדול-סנפיר
- **French:** baleine à bosse, Rorqual a bosse, baleine à taquet, baleine tampon
- **Italian:** balena gobba, megattera
- **German:** Buckelwal, Knurrwal, langhaendige Wal
- **Spanish:** ambaqui, ballena cantora, ballena de aletas grandes
- **Greek:** Μεγάπτερη φάλαινα, Μεγάπτερη
- **Turkish:** kambur balina
- **Portuguese:** baleia jubarte, Baleia-de-bossa, Baleia-jubarte
- **Dutch:** Bultrug, Bultrugwalvis, langarmvinvisch
- **Swedish:** knölval, hnunfurbakur, puckelval
- **Polish:** Długopłetwiec oceaniczny, Humbak, długopłetwiec
- **Czech:** keporkak dlouhoplautvý, keporkak
- **Japanese:** zato kujira, ザトウクジラ
- **Chinese:** 大翅鯨, 大翅鲸, 座頭鯨
- **Ukrainian:** Горбань, Кит горбатий, Горбатий кит, Горбач
- **Russian:** горбатый кит, dlinnorukyi polosatik, gorbatyi kit
- **AF:** Boggelrugwalvis, boggelwalvis
- **BEL:** Гарбаты кіт
- **BG:** Гърбат кит
- **CA:** balena geperuda, lubarta
- **CYM:** Morfilod Cefngrwm, morfil cefngrwm
- **DA:** Pukkelhval
- **EU:** Xibarta
- **FI:** Ryhävalas
- **GLA:** muc-mhara chrotach (no muc-chrotach), mucan-mara crotach
- **HU:** hosszúszárnyú bálna
- **ID:** Paus Bungkuk, paus bongkok
- **IS:** Hnúfubakur, Hnúðurbakur, hnufubakur
- **KAL:** Qipoqqaq
- **KAN:** ಗೂನುತಿಮಿಂಗಲ
- **KO:** hog-deung-gorae, 혹등고래
- **LT:** kuprotasis banginis
- **LTZ:** Bockelwal
- **LV:** kuprvalis, valzius
- **MLG:** trozona be trafo
- **MRI:** Paikea
- **NNO:** knølkval
- **NO:** knølhval, stor rorhval, knölhval
- **SL:** kit grbavec
- **SME:** báhkkebossu
- **SQI:** Balena gungaçe
- **TH:** วาฬหลังค่อม
- **TON:** Tofua'a

## Scientific synonyms

- *Balaena allamack* Gray, 1846
- *Balaena atlanticus* Hurdis, 1897
- *Balaena boops* Fabricius, 1780
- *Balaena gibbosa* Gray, 1843
- *Balaena lalandii* Fischer, 1829
- *Balaena longimana* Rudolphi, 1832
- *Balaena nodosa* Bonnaterre, 1789
- *Balaena novaeangliae* Borowski, 1781
- *Balaena sulcata antarctica* Schlegel, 1841
- *Balaenoptera antarctica* Temminck, 1841
- *Balaenoptera astrolabe* Pucheran, 1843
- *Balaenoptera australis* Lesson, 1828
- *Balaenoptera capensis* A. Smith, 1834
- *Balaenoptera leucopteron* Lesson, 1842
- *Balaenoptera syncondylus* A. Mueller, 1863
- *Kyphobalaena keporkak* Van Beneden, 1868
- *Megaptera americana* Gray, 1846
- *Megaptera antarctica* Gray, 1846
- *Megaptera bellicosa* Cope, 1871
- *Megaptera boops* Van Beneden & Gervais, 1880
- *Megaptera brasiliensis* True, 1904
- *Megaptera braziliensis* Cope, 1867
- *Megaptera burmeisteri* Burmeister, 1866
- *Megaptera gigas* Cope, 1865
- *Megaptera indica* Gervais, 1883

## Range

Antarctica, Comoros, Federal Republic of Somalia, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, New Zealand, North Atlantic Ocean, North Sea, Pacific Ocean, Seychelles, Southern Ocean, Tanzania, Western Indian Ocean, World Oceans

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/mammals/whales/humpback-whale)*
*Updated: August 14, 2026*