Physical Description
The finless porpoise almost completely lacks a dorsal fin. Instead there is a low ridge covered in thick denticulated skin.
Adults are a uniform, light grey colour. Newborn calves are mostly black with grey around the dorsal ridge area, becoming fully grey after four to six months. Adults grow more than 1.55 m (5 ft) in length and up to 30–45 kg (65–100 lb) in weight. Males become sexually mature at around four to six years of age, and females at around six to 9 years of age.
Read more about this topic: Finless Porpoise
Famous quotes containing the words physical and/or description:
“I have often been reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime; and the Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at all times rendered me notorious. Indeed, a strong relish for physical philosophy has, I fear, tinctured my mind with a very common error of this age—I mean the habit of referring occurrences, even the least susceptible of such reference, to the principles of that science.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)