The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) is a baleen whale of the right whale family Balaenidae in suborder Mysticeti. A stocky dark-colored whale without a dorsal fin, it can grow to 20 m (66 ft) in length.
This thick-bodied species can weigh 75 tonnes (74 long tons; 83 short tons) to 100 tonnes (98 long tons; 110 short tons),[3] second only to the blue whale, although the bowhead's maximum length is less than several other whales.
It lives entirely in fertile Arctic and sub-Arctic waters, unlike other whales that migrate to feed or reproduce to low latitude waters. It is also known as Greenland right whale or Arctic whale. American whalemen called it the steeple-top, polar whale,[4] or Russia or Russian whale.
The bowhead is perhaps the longest-living mammal, and has the largest mouth of any animal.[5]
DNA samples taken from living Bowhead Whales (nearly commercially fished to death) indicate a life-span of OVER TWO HUNDRED YEARS.
So, these a Bowhead Whale alive today, could have been born back in Napoleonic times, 1812 or so.
