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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
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.
Mysticeti comprises the families Balaenidae (right and bowhead whales), Balaenopteridae , Eschrichtiidae (the gray whale) and Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale). There are currently 16 species of baleen whales. Baleen whales split from toothed whales (Odontoceti) around 34 million years ago
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 .
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 ...
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 ...
Rice's whale (Balaenoptera ricei), also known as the Gulf of Mexico whale, is a species of baleen whale endemic to the northern Gulf of Mexico. Initially identified as a subpopulation of the Bryde's whale, genetic and skeletal studies found it to be a distinct species by 2021. In outward appearance, it is virtually identical to the Bryde's whale.
An orca breaching in Hood Canal. The marine mammals of the Salish Sea are numerous and diverse, both in taxonomy and morphology. A total of six species of pinnipeds, eight species of baleen whales, seventeen species of toothed whales, and one mustelid (the sea otter) inhabiting the local waters of the Salish Sea and the outer coastal waters over the continental shelf off Washington and British ...