Balaena novae angliae Borowski, 1781 p.21; Type locality- New England Coast, US.
Balaena nodosa Bonnaterre, 1789 p.5; Type locality- New England Coast, US.
Megaptera kuzira Gray, 1850 p.30; Type locality- Japan.
Megaptera versabilis Cope, 1869 p.15; Type locality- North Pacific.
Megaptera nodosa: Kuroda, 1938 p.12; Won, 1968 p.243.
Megaptera novaeangliae: Won, 1958 p.434; Won, 1967 p.80; Kim et al, 2000 p.62; Kim, 2004 p.223.
Megaptera nodosa nodosa: Won, 1968 p.244.
Megaptera novaeangliae kuzira: Jackson et al., 2014 p.8 (North Pacific).
Range: Humpback whales inhabit coastal waters. The first record of M. novaeangliae in Korea occurred in 1911 in the waters off Ulsan (Andrews 1916). During the Japanese invasion (1910–1945), fishermen caught 128 humpback whales in the Korean waters; since 1958, only 13 were captured (Park 1987). More recently, observations of humpback whales have regularly been made in waters southeast of Korea (Kim 2004; Fig. 80).
Remarks: Previously, North Korea and South Korea had different scientific names for this species, M. nodosa and M. novaeangliae, respectively (Won 1967, 1968). A recent study based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA resulted in the recognition of the single species M. novaeangliae and three subspecies: M. n. kuzira (Gray, 1850) for the North Pacific Ocean (including Korea), M. n. novaeangliae (Borowski, 1781) for the North Atlantic Ocean and M. n. australis (Lesson, 1828) for the Southern Hemisphere (Jackson et al. 2014). Divergence time estimates indicated that the North Pacific Ocean subspecies was the earliest offshoot, rising ~ 175,000 years ago (Jackson et al. 2014).
Conservation status: Megaptera novaeangliae has been a Protected Marine Species in South Korea since 2007. The Red Data Book of North Korea classified this species as ‘Vulnerable’ (MAB National Committee of DPR Korea 2002). CITES lists this species on Appendix I.