Bowhead whales are black overall, except for a white "vest" of uneven coloration on the chin. Within that vest, near the sides of the white zone, there may be a series of grayish black to black spots, which on some animals have been likened to a string of beads. The vest is clearly visible when a surfacing animal is viewed from the front or the side or when the animals hang vertically in the water with the head on the surface and the tail flukes down, as they do during periods of early spring mating.
Bowhead whales are usually found singly or in groups of up to three animals, though fall concentrations may include up to 50 animals.
Bowhead whales sometimes breach, throwing most of the body clear of the surface and reentering with a resounding splash.
Bowhead whales are the only species of large whales found routinely in Arctic waters. Though other species, including some of the balaenopterid whales and the right whale, may venture north as far as the southern limits of the bowhead whale and beyond, they usually do so in the spring and summer, at a time when the bowhead whales are farther to the north. Even if they are encountered together, bowhead whales can be distinguished from all the balaenopterid whales by the absence of a dorsal fin. Bowhead whales have neither a fin nor the slightest trace of a dorsal fin or ridge, while all the balaenopterids have a dorsal fin; and their back is extremely smooth, like that of the right whale. The bowhead and right whales may be readily distinguished from one another by the characters listed below for stranded specimens.
Though bowhead whales in the western North Atlantic were once distributed from Arctic waters, from the edge of the ice, south as far as the Strait of Belle Isle and the St. Lawrence River in such abundance that they were once referred to simply as "the whale," overwhaling through the 19th century until as recently as 1911 has severely reduced their numbers and restricted their modern range. Today in addition to the more abundant populations of the Bering, Beaufort, and Chukchi seas and the Sea of Okhotsk, there are populations off eastern Greenland and in Davis Straits, Baffin Bay, James Bay, and the adjacent waters. Within these ranges, bowhead whales move southward in front of the advancing ice floes and may be expected near the southern limits of their range from September or October through the early spring months. Populations in the western North Atlantic appear to be increasing slowly.