According to wikipedia Beluga may refer to:
- Beluga (whale), a type of whale
- Beluga (sturgeon), the fish whose roe is sold as Beluga caviar
- Airbus Beluga, an airplane
- Beluga class submarine, Russian submarine class
- Beluga, Alaska, a community in the United States
We are going to refer to the first aception and to find out why Airbus call its plane Beluga.
The Beluga or White Whale (Delphinapterus leucas) is an Arctic and sub-Arctic species of cetacean. It is one of two members of the familyMonodontidae, along with the Narwhal. This marine mammal is commonly referred to simply as the Beluga or Sea Canary due to its high-pitched twitter.
The global population of Beluga today stands at about 100,000. Although this number is much greater than that of other cetaceans, it is much smaller than historical populations before decades of over-hunting. There are estimated to be 40,000 individuals in the Beaufort Sea, 25,045 in Hudson Bay, 18,500 in the Bering Sea and 28,008 in the Canadian Low Arctic. The population in the St. Lawrence estuary is estimated to be around 1000. It is considered an excellent sentinel species and indicator of the health of, and changes in, the environment. This is because it is long lived, on top of the food web, with large amounts of fat and blubber, relatively well studied for a cetacean, and still somewhat common.
Listen to beluga’s twits 1 and 2 . Sound courtesy of Peter Scheifele, Department of Animal Science at University of Connecticut to DOSITS of the University of Rhode Island.
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