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Balaenoptera physalus

Fin Whale

Speciesaccepted · checked 2026-08-05WoRMS 137091ITIS 180527key worms:137091
i

2026-08-05: itis_id 180527 via WoRMS external link

calcofi:marine_mammals

The fin whale, also known as the finback whale or common rorqual, is a species of baleen whale and the second-longest cetacean after the blue whale. The biggest individual reportedly measured 26–27.3 m (85–90 ft) in length, with a maximum recorded weight of 65.5 to 120 tonnes.W CalCOFI holds 122 observations of it in 1 dataset between 1987 and 2020.R

122
observations
122
records
122
sampling events
1987–2020
years
1
datasets
27 m
max length
Photograph of Balaenoptera physalus
Photo · anonymous, no known copyright restrictions (public domain) · Public domain · inat

Observed in 1 dataset
i

One row per dataset, and beside it one cell per year, darker with more observations — the same strip the front door draws per dataset. Each row ends with the name that dataset uses (dataset_taxon); the accepted name is written once, in the title above. A quiet pill marks a name the authority does not accept.

Ways inExplorerdb-queryERDDAPRPythonThis page as JSON

Code and endpoints ERDDAP · R · Python · JSON
ERDDAPCalCOFI's own server, the Seabirds & Marine Mammals table constrained to this taxon
https://erddap.calcofi.io/erddap/tabledap/farallon_bird-mammal.html?&taxon_key=%22worms:137091%22

Read from taxa.json of release v2026.10.20, written at release by calcofi4db::build_taxa_catalog(). The catalog's index is /species/.

How big is it 27 m max
Fin Whale27 m
R/V Reuben Lasker63.6 m

max · sealifebase

Every mark is a measured length with its own source — hover one to read it. The reference objects are _data/size_reference.csv: two of them, the 505 µm bongo mesh and the net's ring, are CalCOFI's own sampling gear.

Lineage 14 ranks · Biota to Balaenoptera
Credits silhouette · photo · text · length
  • Silhouette · T. Michael Keesey · CC BY-SA 3.0 · PhyloPic, drawn from Balaenoptera musculus · source
  • Photo · anonymous, no known copyright restrictions (public domain) · Public domain · inat · source
  • Text · Wikipedia, “Fin whale” · CC BY-SA 4.0 · revision 1370200574
  • Length · sealifebase
Elsewhere Wikidata · iNaturalist · GBIF

WikidataiNaturalistGBIF

The same organism on the services the faces were fetched from; the authorities' own pages are the ids in the head.

Cite the release, v2026.10.20

Cite the release, v2026.10.20; each dataset's own citation, licence and DOI are on its page. How to cite ↗