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A diagnostic feature often used by field scientists to distinguish Rice's whales from whales other than the Bryde's whale is the three prominent ridges that line the top of its head. The species can be distinguished from the Bryde's whale by the shape of the nasal bones , which have wider gaps due to a unique wrapping by the frontal bones , its ...
[72] [73] With sharks, orcas may herd them to the surface and strike them with their tail flukes, [72] while bottom-dwelling rays are cornered, pinned to the ground and taken to the surface. [74] In other parts of the world, orcas have preyed on broadnose sevengill sharks, [75] whale sharks, [76] [77] and even great white sharks.
The whale shark and basking shark exceed all other fish by a considerable margin in weight and length. Fish are a paraphyletic group that describes aquatic vertebrates while excluding tetrapods, and the bony fish that often represent the group are more closely related to cetaceans such as whales, than to the cartilaginous fish such as sharks ...
Scientists saw a male orca kill a juvenile great white shark within minutes last year. The hunting behavior could be a sign of a wider shift in the marine ecosystem.
Baleen whales use their baleen plates to sieve plankton, among others, out of the water; there are two types of methods: lunge-feeding and gulp-feeding. Lunge-feeders expand the volume of their jaw to a volume bigger than the original volume of the whale itself by inflating their mouth.
Whale skulls have small eye orbits, long snouts (with the exception of monodontids and ziphiids) and eyes placed on the sides of its head. Whales range in size from the 2.6-metre (8.5 ft) and 135-kilogram (298 lb) dwarf sperm whale to the 34-metre (112 ft) and 190-metric-ton (210-short-ton) blue whale.
Sowerby's Mesoplodon (Mesoplodon bidens) is a beaked whale that is smaller (4–6 m) [47] than Cuvier's Whale, with a longer, tapered beak. [49] Unlike the Cuvier Whale, this species does not appear to be spotted, [50] and the male's teeth are clearly visible but do not form prominences. [51]
Get excited for the 35th official Shark Week, from July 23 to July 29, with these shark facts. Sharks are millions of years older than dinosaurs and 5 other facts that may surprise you Skip to ...