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Whales have two flippers on the front, and a tail fin. These flippers contain four digits. Although whales do not possess fully developed hind limbs, some, such as the sperm whale and bowhead whale, possess discrete rudimentary appendages, which may contain feet and digits.
Female beaked whales' teeth are hidden in the gums and are not visible, and most male beaked whales have only two short tusks. Narwhals have vestigial teeth other than their tusk, which is present on males and 15% of females and has millions of nerves to sense water temperature, pressure and salinity.
The skim-feeders are right whales, gray whales, pygmy right whales, and sei whales (which also lunge feed). To feed, skim-feeders swim with an open mouth, filling it with water and prey. Prey must occur in sufficient numbers to trigger the whale's interest, be within a certain size range so that the baleen plates can filter it, and be slow ...
Labeled sperm whale skeleton. Like many cetaceans, the sperm whale has a vestigial pelvis that is not connected to the spine. [citation needed] Like that of other toothed whales, the skull of the sperm whale is asymmetrical so as to aid echolocation. Sound waves that strike the whale from different directions will not be channeled in the same ...
Whales and their relatives have a soft tissue flipper that encases most of the forelimb, and elongated digits with an increased number of phalanges. [9] Hyperphalangy is an increase in the number of phalanges beyond the plesiomorphic mammal condition of three phalanges-per-digit. [ 10 ]
There are no known observations of predation on Rice's whales, but it is likely that its main predator is the killer whale, which is known in the Gulf of Mexico, as they have been seen attacking local sperm whales and dolphins and are the only known natural predator of the Bryde's whale. There is debated speculation that some baleen whales ...
Whales do not lay eggs. Since they are mammals, they give birth to live young. There are only five known monotremes , or egg-laying mammals, according to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
The melon is structurally part of the nasal apparatus and comprises most of the mass tissue between the blowhole and the tip of the snout. The function of the melon is not completely understood, but scientists believe it is a bioacoustic component, providing a means of focusing sounds used in echolocation and creating a similarity between characteristics of its tissue and the surrounding water ...