The Northern right whale populations are considered by some to be close to extinction while populations the Southern right whale are doing better with the largest groups seen off western Australia, South Africa, and Argentina. Right whales are large, rotund, black whales with large heads, long rostrums, and no dorsal fins. Right whales have distinguishing callosities which are the best identification both for the species and for individual right whale. It has been hard to research this question because right whales are too large to study in an oceanarium and are difficult to study in the open ocean. It is thought that right whales probably have excellent hearing, especially at low frequencies, which is valuable in the dark ocean environment where vision is less useful.
Right whales are baleen whales, they filter their food through their long baleen plates.
Right whales open their great mouths and graze along the surface of the water. Right whales mostly eat small crustaceans including copepods and small shrimp-like animals called euphausiids. Right whales are probably old enough to mate around 8 years old. Females are pregnant for about 13 months and only get pregnant approximately every three to five years. Calves are born able to swim.