bowhead

[boh-hed]

noun

1. a baleen whale, Balaena mysticetus, of northern seas, having an enormous head and mouth: an endangered species.

bowhead

/ ˈbəʊˌhɛd /

noun

1. a large-mouthed arctic whale, Balaena mysticetus , that has become rare through overfishing but is now a protected species

Word History and Origins

Origin of bowhead¹

First recorded in 1885–90; bow ² + head

Example Sentences

Other whale species include North Pacific gray whales, the North Atlantic right whale, minke, sperm, fin and bowhead whales.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Twenty-five years ago, scientists working with Indigenous whale hunters in the Arctic showed that bowhead whales could live up to and even over 200 years.

Read more on Salon

Researchers used more than a decade of acoustic data to monitor bowhead whales' movements between their usual overwintering grounds in the Bering Sea and summer feeding grounds in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.

Read more on Science Daily

This feeding style would match that used by modern bowhead and right whales, which swim with their mouth open near the ocean surface to strain small prey from the seawater.

Read more on Reuters

You’ve sequenced genomes of very long-lived animals such as the bowhead whale, which lives up to 200 years.

Read more on Scientific American