PAINTINGS - (a) RIGHT WHALE & (b) BOWHEAD WHALE

RIGHT WHALE (Balaena glacialis)
Because it produced plentiful oil and bone, was slow swimming and easy to kill, and floated when dead, this animal became known as the "right" whale to hunt. Right whales are thickset, heavy animals with no dorsal fin. They have been measured at up to 60 feet, and may weigh as many tons. They have extremely long baleen plates , and feed by " skimming" through shoals of small crustaceans. The whales are born with the "callosities" on their heads; the pattern of these callosities varies, making possible the identification of individual whales. The largest breeding population of these rare whales is found off the Patagonian coast of southern Argentina, but they are protected throughout the world.
51.
BOWHEAD WHALE (Balaena mysticetus)
Probably the rarest large animal in the world, the bowhead is certainly the largest rare animal in the world. It is a heavy bodied whale with a head that can account for a third of its 60-foot length. This species has the longest baleen plates of any whale, sometimes measured at 15 feet or more. Also known as " whalebone," baleen was used for corset stays, skirt hoops, and buggy whips, and was the reason this whale was so intensively hunted. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the bowhead (then known as the "Greenland right whale or the "Arctic whale") was hunted to extinction in the eastern Arctic; the only remaining population today can be found off Alaska. There are fewer than 3000 bowheads alive now, and the Alaskan Eskimos still hunt them for food and blubber.
52.

Verso: Smithsonian label checklist # 51,52 Packing case # 2, AWHS accession number