![]() Unlike most other marine mammals, female baleen whales are larger than males.īaleen whales include right whales (southern rights, pygmy rights), gray whales and rorquals. Food is caught in the bristles of the baleen, while water is forced out of the mouth through the gaps.īaleen whales have two blowholes, which in right whales produce a distinctive V-shaped blow, the spout of water spray and vapour blown out when the whale surfaces to breathe. ![]() The lower jaws are very flexible and the mouth is expandable to accommodate the gulping method of feeding. These hang from the roof of the mouth and are used to filter plankton, krill and schooling fish. Baleen consists of a series of sloping plates made from keratin, the same material that makes up our fingernails. Baleen whalesīaleen whales are named after their feeding apparatus: baleens. Toothed whales have a single blowhole on the top of the head, which was formed from one of the nostrils becoming dominant over the other, rather than from them fusing together. Toothed whales tend to eat squid, octopus, crustaceans, fish and occasionally other marine mammals. It also includes the smallest of the cetaceans, the porpoise, and one of the largest, the sperm whale, as well as the largest type of dolphin, the orca which is also known as the killer whale. The odontoceti include beaked whales, bottlenose whales and dolphins. Toothed whales have teeth, but some – such as Baird’s beaked whale – have tusks, while the narwhal has a long spiraled horn, much like the mythical unicorn.
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