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Whales are fully aquatic, open-ocean animals: they can feed, mate, give birth, suckle and raise their young at sea. Whales range in size from the 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) and 135 kilograms (298 lb) dwarf sperm whale to the 29.9 metres (98 ft) and 190 tonnes (210 short tons) blue whale, which is the
The earliest known ancestor of arctic whales is Denebola brachycephala from the late Miocene around 9–10 million years ago. [55] A single fossil from Baja California indicates the family once inhabited warmer waters. [27] [56] [57] Acrophyseter skull. Ancient sperm whales differ from modern sperm whales in tooth count and the shape of the ...
Once a whale was sighted, rowing boats were sent from the shore. If the whale was successfully killed it was towed ashore, flensed (i.e., the blubber was cut off), and the blubber boiled in cauldrons known as "try pots". Even when whales were caught far offshore, the blubber was still boiled on shore well into the 18th century.
Cetacea (/ s ɪ ˈ t eɪ ʃ ə /; from Latin cetus 'whale', from Ancient Greek κῆτος () 'huge fish, sea monster') [3] is an infraorder of aquatic mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises.
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.
In contrast, the origin of cetaceans, which includes whales, began as four-legged land animals who actively used locomotion and were great runners as a result. [14] The fossils came out of red terrigenous sediments bounded largely by shallow marine deposits typical of coastal environments caused by the Tethys Ocean. [15]
Out of nowhere, two giant blue whales rose from under Captain CiCi Sayer and Dale Frink's boat off the coast of San Diego July 2, casting them into the ocean. Thankfully neither was hurt ...
Protocetus atavus ("first whale") is an extinct species of primitive cetacean from Egypt.It lived during the middle Eocene period 45 million years ago. The first discovered protocetid, Protocetus atavus was described by Fraas 1904 based on a cranium and a number of associated vertebrae and ribs found in middle Lutetian Tethyan marine limestone from Gebel Mokattam near Cairo, Egypt.