A couple of weeks ago Marco and his dive group were lucky enough to see a Bryde’s Whale in Manila Channel! Unfortunately nobody had a camera with them at the time 🙁 Hopefully this will not be the last we see of this majestic creature.
In case you are wondering, Bryde’s Whales are baleen whales or great whales (which are characterised by having baleen plates for filtering food from water, rather than having teeth). They prefer tropical and temperate waters over the polar seas that other whales in their family frequent, and are largely coastal rather than pelagic. Bryde’s whales are very similar in appearance to sei whales and almost as large. Females average over 42 feet (13 m), ranging between 40–50 feet (12–15 m). On average females weigh 26,400 pounds (12,000 kg), weighing up to 55,000 pounds (25,000 kg). Males are usually slightly smaller than females.
We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled in case this beauty shows up again, and maybe next time we will be lucky enough to get some photos.
