Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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
Whaling is the practice of hunting whales, mainly baleen and sperm whales. This activity has gone on since the Stone Age. [89] In the Middle Ages, reasons for whaling included their meat, oil usable as fuel and the jawbone, which was used in house construction. At the end of the Middle Ages, early whaling fleets aimed at baleen whales, such as ...
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.
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 ...
The sei whale, or Rudolph's whale (Balaenoptera borealis), lives mainly in the North Atlantic and avoids enclosed seas, [22] but occasionally makes occasional incursions into the Mediterranean, although this is considered exceptional [12] and restricted to Spain and France. [14] The sei whale is classified as "endangered" on the IUCN Red List. [23]
There are approximately 89 living species split into two parvorders: Odontoceti or toothed whales (containing porpoises, dolphins, other predatory whales like the beluga and the sperm whale, and the poorly understood beaked whales) and the filter feeding Mysticeti or baleen whales (which includes species like the blue whale, the humpback whale ...
The sei whale (/ s eɪ / SAY, [4] Norwegian:; Balaenoptera borealis) is a baleen whale. It is one of ten rorqual species, and the third-largest member after the blue and fin whales. It can grow to 19.5 m (64 ft) in length and weigh as much as 28 t (28 long tons; 31 short tons). Two subspecies are recognized: B. b. borealis and B. b. schlegelii.