📸 PhotoPhoto: Public domain · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons Source
Gray Whale
Eschrichtius robustus (Gray Whale · コククジラ)
🇰🇷 Marine Protected Species (Korea)
💡 Everyday Comparisons for Size, Mass & Speed
- 💡 Its maximum body length of about 14.9 m is about 4 m longer than a city bus (about 11 m) (Comparison).
- 💡 Because the waters off Ulsan serve as a migration corridor for calving, the sea area itself is designated a Natural Monument (Korea).
Reference standards: coach bus ~12 m, mid-size car ~4.9 m, compact car ~1 t, basketball hoop 3.05 m, credit card 8.56 cm.
Site-computed relative index from recorded values; not a formal scientific metric.
📖 1. Overview
The Gray Whale is a baleen whale living only in the North Pacific, named 'ghost whale' in Korean because it travels close to shore and appears like a ghost among coastal reefs.
🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology
Its body is blackish with pectoral flippers and tail flukes but no dorsal fin, and large and small white patches form where barnacles and other attached organisms have dropped off.
🔍 3. Ecology & Behavior
It filter-feeds on small invertebrates such as amphipods living on and just above the sea floor. The gestation period is 1 year, and females give birth to a single calf every 2 years.
🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea
The population appearing along the East Sea coast breeds in winter off the Korean Peninsula and Japan and migrates north to the northern Sea of Okhotsk in summer. Its migration route, the 'Ulsan Gray Whale Migration Sea Area,' was designated a Natural Monument (Korea) in 1962, and it is listed as a Marine Protected Species on the National List of Species of Korea.
📚 Sources & References
- • IUCN Red List LC (2018) — https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/8097/50353881
- • 해양보호생물 — 국가생물종목록(국립생물자원관) ktsn 120000053372 — https://species.nibr.go.kr/home/mainHome.do?cont_link=009&subMenu=009002&contCd=009002&ktsn=120000053372
- • IUCN Red List category LC — latest assessment at iucnredlist.org
- • Korean protection status: Marine Protected Species (Korea)
- • mammaldiversity.org — 1006404
- • iucnredlist.org — 50353881
- • 국가생물종목록(국립생물자원관) ktsn 120000053372 — https://species.nibr.go.kr/home/mainHome.do?cont_link=009&subMenu=009002&contCd=009002&ktsn=120000053372
- • wikidata.org — Q179154
- • commons.wikimedia.org — File:Gray whale.jpg
- • fisheries.noaa.gov — gray-whale
- • heritage.go.kr — culSelectDetail.do
- • Silhouette: PhyloPic — author not recorded · Public Domain Mark 1.0
Recorded dimensions are widely cited representative estimates from public literature and may vary by study or specimen.