•Spend entire lives at sea
•Stream-lined bodies
Breathe air through blowhole
•Front flippers; tail = “fluke”
•Blubber for insulation
•Slow reproductive rate; 1 calf / 2-3 years
Beluga & Calf
•“Moustached” – baleen plates hang from upper lip
•Flexible, fibrous plates of keratin to strain water
Baleen
•Eat krill, small fish, crustaceans
Krill
•2 Blowhole openings
•Rorquals – grooves along throat/chest to expand
Ex: humpback, finback
Humpbacks Feeding
Humpbacks
•Size: 40-50 ft
•Body black, often w/barnacles (gooseneck barnacles)
•Flippers to 15 ft; white underneath; used to ID
Behaviors:
Breaching
Feeding with Bubble Net
Whales swim in circle blowing bubbles trapping fish inside “net”, then swim up center
Lunge Feeding
Swim through school & engulf food &
water
•“Greyhounds of the Sea” – to 20mph
•Lifespan 90-100yrs
•2nd Largest animal on Earth – to 85 ft
•Known for elaborate songs
Blue Whale
•Largest animal; 100 ft
Person standing between blue whale jaw bones
Blue Whale
Right Whale
•Carcasses float; slow
•“Upside-down smile”
•Most endangered
•Size: to 30-50 ft
•Teeth to catch & hold prey; swallowed whole
Eat fish, squid, seals
•Single blowhole opening
•Often travel in pods
•Ex: SPERM WHALE
•Largest toothed whale (40-60ft); feed on Giant Squid; dive deep
•Orca or Killer Whale
Spyhopping
•Dolphins: beak & conical teeth
•Porpoises: blunt head & flat teeth
•Echolocation
•Sounds sent from sacs in head (melon)
•Received through jaw to inner ear (like SONAR)
•Used for navigation, socialization, predation