One of the special characters of the white whales is the nature of echolocation, the ability to see through sound. The beam of sound sent by the fore head of the white whales echoes back when it hits something. The melon which acts as an acoustical lens helps in directing the sound.

These echo backed sounds are picked up by the lower jaw of the whales. The lower jaw which is hollow and filled with fat helps in traveling the sound to middle ear, inner ear and auditory nerve. The whales' brain interprets these echoed sounds and can recognize the things around it and can know how far away it is, what is it's size, what is its moving speed and direction etc. Other characteristics are their vocal nature, chirps emitting, squeaking etc. They have big melon and short beak, and body covered with scars which are caused by the polar bears and killer whales. The polar bears attack the whales when they become ensnared in pack ice.

They form groups. Scientists have reported that they have more than 10,000 groups, each group having 20 to 25 members leaded by the large single male. The male lead them at the time of migration and high food abundance. IUCN Red List of 2000 has listed the white whales as vulnerable. The body feature of the white whale is stout having small rounded head, small eyes and thick portions of fat. It has the single blowhole, jaws with 34 pointed teeth and rounded flippers. Because of its diet patterns it is known as the squid hound. Unlike others in its environment, the white whale has a very flexible neck. Because of its absent dorsal fin it can easily sneak between ices in the Arctic.

The teeth of the white whale are unable to chew but are able to grab and tear the pray very well. They can swallow their pray in whole. They are opportunistic feeders having varied type of diet. They are benthic feeder as they can have it in bottom and pelagic feeders as they can oceanic feeding style also. It can hunt a group of fishes at a time. Per day one adult white whale can eat up to 3% of its body weight which is almost equivalent to 50 pound. The pod of the whales constitute male, female as well as calves also. A strong bond prevails between mother and calves. At the time of migration the pods travel in group having 200 to 10000 members.