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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.
Baleen whales have two flippers on the front, near the head. Like all mammals, baleen whales breathe air and must surface periodically to do so. Their nostrils, or blowholes, are situated at the top of the cranium. Baleen whales have two blowholes, as opposed to toothed whales which have one.
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.
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 ...
Beaked whales have several anatomical adaptations to deep diving: large spleens, livers, and body shape. Most cetaceans have small spleens. However, beaked whales have much larger spleens than delphinids, and may have larger livers, as well. These anatomical traits, which are important for filtering blood, could be adaptations to deep diving.
Pakicetids have long thin legs, with relatively short hands and feet which suggest that they were poor swimmers. [1] To compensate for that, their bones are unusually thick (osteosclerotic), which is probably an adaptation to make the animal heavier to counteract the buoyancy of the water. [7]
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.
This contrasts with the stylohyal bones in Bryde's whales, which have a degree of curvature and are longer than wide. In the vestigial hip, the pelvic bones are nearly straight, with only one side having a tiny projection. [4]