phrs whale

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whale

Any marine mammal of the order Cetacea. The only mammals tohave adapted to living entirely in water, they have front limbsmodified into flippers and no externally visible traces of hind limbs.

They have horizontal tail flukes. When they surface to breathe, thehot air they breathe out condenses to form a 'spout' through theblowhole (single or double nostrils) in the top of the head. Whalesare intelligent and have a complex communication system, knownas 'songs'. They occur in all seas of the world.

The order is divided into two groups: the toothed whales(Odontoceti) and the baleen whales (Mysticeti). Toothed whales arepredators, feeding on fish and squid. They include dolphins andporpoises, along with large forms such as sperm whales. The largest

whales are the baleen whales, with plates of modified mucousmembrane called baleen (whalebone) in the mouth; these strain thefood, mainly microscopic plankton, from the water. Baleen whalesinclude the finback and right whales, and the bluewhale, the largestanimal that has ever lived, of length up to 30 m/100 ft.

Whales have been hunted for hundreds of years (see whaling); todaythey are close to extinction. Of the 11 great whale species, 7 werelisted as either endangered or vulnerable in 1996. Whale-watching,

as an economic alternative to whaling, generated $121 millionworldwide in 1994.

DescriptionThe whale's skin is hairless. Below the skin is a thick layer ofblubber, fatty tissue. Movement is by the tail and flukes. Whalestypically give birth to a single young at a time. The young are bornalive, after a gestation period of 10-12 months. Most whales areinoffensive creatures and swim in herds; they have been known tofollow a confused leader onto a beach. Once stranded on shore they

die by suffocation, their own weight crushing the lungs.

VarietiesToothed whales comprise 66 species, of which the largest is thesperm whalePhyseter catodon. A waxlike substance, spermaceti, isused by the whale to enable it to dive; cold water is taken into theblowhole cooling the spermaceti, which becomes denser, and thewhale dives. To surface, the whale directs blood towards thespermaceti, which then warms and becomes less dense.

The killer whale is a large member of the dolphin family(Delphinidae), and is often exhibited in oceanaria. Killer whales inthe wild have 815 special calls, and each family group, or 'pod',

humpbackwhale

narwhal

Classification:

The Influenceof DNAAnalysis

Palaeontology:The WalkingWhale

Whaling

CINMS MarineMammalSightingsDatabase

ClassificationofWhales

Whales EndangeredSpecies

Whale SongsWhales on theNet LatestNews Menu

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has its own particular dialect: they are the first mammals known tohave dialects in the same way as human language.

Baleen whales comprise 10 species, in three families: rorquals,right whales, and grey whales. The common rorqualBalaenoptera

physalas is slate-coloured, and not quite so large. Right whales ofthe family Ballaenidae have a thick body and an enormous head.They are regarded by whalers as the 'right' whale to exploit sincethey swim slowly and are relatively easy to catch. The Northernright whale is close to extinction in 1999 there were fewer than325 remaining. The bluewhaleSibaldus musculus, one of thefinbackwhales (or rorquals), is 31 m/100 ft long, and weighs over100 tonnes. It is the largest animal ever to inhabit the planet. It feedson plankton, strained through its whalebone 'plates'. The bottle-nosed whale occasionally visits British waters. The white whale is

found mostly off Labrador and Canada. Of the whalebone or rightwhales the most important formerly were the Greenland whale

Balaena mysticetus and the Biscayan whale or nordkaperEubalaena glacialis.

Beaked whales comprise 18 species that are found in all oceans.They are a little known group of medium-sized whales, with narrowsnouts resembling htose of dolphins. A new species of beaked whalewas discovered in 1996, in Chilean waters. The melon-headedwhalePeponocephala electra, like the other beaked whales, is a

deep-living whale that feeds on squid. It is estimated to be 5 m inlength and weighs around 2 tonnes.

See also bowheadwhale.

A third order, the Archaeoceti, is known only from fossils.Palaeontologists from the USA and Pakistan discovered 1993 afossil whale with legs. The fossil, calledAmbulocetus, is 50 millionyears old and about the size of a male sea lion. It was able to walkon land but spent most of its time at sea.

FeedingThe humpback whaleMegaptera novaeangliae catches krill byencircling them and blowing bubbles to concentrate them into asmaller central area. It then rises through the krill to eat it.

Sperm whales feed mainly on squid, for which they can dive to1,000 m/3,280 ft (one dive was recorded at over 3,000 m/9,841 ft).A dive may last for up to an hour, although they are more typically

around ten minutes. Exactly how the sperm whale catches squid isunknown, although the squid frequently leave sucker marks on thewhales' heads.

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Did You Know?

The grey whale migrates further than any other mammal.It makes a round trip of 20,400 km/12,500 mi betweenits summer feeding grounds in the Arctic and its winter

breeding lagoons off the western coast of Mexico.

Did You Know?

The large circular scars visible on the bodies of spermwhales are inflicted by the teeth-lined suckers of giantsquid. The whales dive to great depths to prey on thesquid.

Did You Know?

The song of the bluewhale is extraordinarily precise: itconsists of one note every 128 seconds. A note may bemissed in which the whale pauses and then makes itsnext note after 256 seconds. The sound carries hundredsof kilometres.

Did You Know?

Most of the great whales have barnacles living on them.The grey whale is the most heavily encrusted, mainlyaround its head and along its back. About 100,000 licelive among the barnacles on each whale.

Did You Know?

The densest bone ever found is in the skull ofBlaineville's beaked whaleMesoplodon densirostris; it

has a density of 2.7 g/0.1 oz per cm

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, about 50% denserthan the average mammalian bone.

Did You Know?

The beluga (white whale) can dive to depths of 600m/1,969 ft and stay down for up to 18 minutes.

Did You Know?

A full-grown humpbackwhale must consume a tonne ofkrill each day. This provides it with the daily equivalent

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Copyright Helicon Publishing Ltd 2000. All rights reserved.

of more than one million calories.

Did You Know?

A whale's skull is made up of 30 bones (compared with

22 in the human skull).

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phrs whale

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