Gray Whale

Eschrichtius robustus

A coastal baleen whale of 14–15 m and up to about 45 tonnes, its dark skin mottled grey and white by the barnacles and whale lice riding on it — the patchwork the common name refers to. It is the only living member of its genus, and it feeds in a way no other great whale does: it rolls onto its side, ploughs the sea floor and sucks up sediment, sieving amphipods and ghost shrimp out through its baleen, though it will skim plankton or crab larvae at the surface when those are thick. That bottom-feeding habit keeps it in shallow coastal water far more than other baleen whales, which is the reason divers and snorkellers encounter it at all. The eastern population makes the longest migration known in any mammal, between Arctic feeding grounds and the warm breeding lagoons of Baja California; the western Pacific population is endangered, and the Atlantic populations were wiped out centuries ago, with only scattered stray sightings since the 2010s. Calves arrive tail-first in a tight six-week window around mid-January, measuring 4.6–4.9 m at birth, and mothers defend them hard enough that whalers called the species "devil fish". In the Baja lagoons the same animals routinely come to small boats of their own accord. Commercial hunting has been off the table since 1949.