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The family Balaenidae, the right whales, contains two genera and four species. All right whales have no ventral grooves; a distinctive head shape with a strongly arched, narrow rostrum, bowed lower jaw; lower lips that enfold the sides and front of the rostrum; and long, narrow, elastic baleen plates (up to nine times longer than wide) with fine baleen fringes.
Baleen whales can have streamlined or large bodies, depending on the feeding behavior, and two limbs that are modified into flippers. The fin whale is the fastest baleen whale, recorded swimming at 10 m/s (36 km/h; 22 mph). Baleen whales use their baleen plates to filter out food from the water by either lunge-feeding or skim-feeding
Rorquals (/ ˈ r ɔːr k w əl z /) are the largest group of baleen whales, comprising the family Balaenopteridae, which contains nine extant species in two genera.They include the largest known animal that has ever lived, the blue whale, which can reach 180 tonnes (200 short tons), and the fin whale, which reaches 120 tonnes (130 short tons); even the smallest of the group, the northern minke ...
Articles relating to baleen whales (parvorder Mysticeti, whalebone whales), marine mammals in the infraorder Cetacea (whales, dolphins and porpoises), which use keratinaceous baleen plates (or "whalebone") in their mouths to sieve planktonic creatures from the water.
List of Asian dinosaurs; List of Australian and Antarctic dinosaurs; List of dinosaurs and other Mesozoic reptiles of New Zealand; List of European dinosaurs; List of Indian and Madagascan dinosaurs; List of North American dinosaurs. List of Appalachian dinosaurs; List of archosaurs of the Chinle Formation; List of dinosaurs of the Morrison ...
This list currently includes only fossil genera and species. However, the Atlantic population of gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) became extinct in the 18th century, and the baiji (or Chinese river dolphin, Lipotes vexillifer) was declared "functionally extinct" after an expedition in late 2006 failed to find any in the Yangtze River.
The adaptation of animal echolocation in toothed whales distinguishes them from fully aquatic archaeocetes and early baleen whales. The presence of baleen in baleen whales occurred gradually, with earlier varieties having very little baleen, and their size is linked to baleen dependence (and subsequent increase in filter feeding).
Balaenoptera (from Latin balaena 'whale' and Ancient Greek πτερά (pterá) 'fin') is a genus of rorquals containing eight extant species. [2] Balaenoptera comprises all but two of the extant species in its family (the humpback whale and gray whale); the genus is currently polyphyletic, with the two aforementioned species being phylogenetically nested within it.