Whales!

! I'll be sharing all the little things I learn about whales here! Note that I'm no professional and I'm just doing this for fun, if you notice any mistakes please tell me in the comments !

✍(work in progress) ✍

General Whale Facts

Whales are a diverse group of aquatic placental marine mammals

They are divided in different categories:

Baleen Whales, which include on one side the Right whales and the Pygmy Right Whale, and on the other the Rorquals and the Grey Whale.

Toothed Whales, which include on one side the Sperm whales and on the other different types of dolphins and beaked whales (Beaked whales, River Dolphins, Beluga and Narwhals, Porpoises, Dolphins).

Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. This is because their ancestor, the Pakicetus, a four-legged, goat-sized creature used to walk the earth. They eventually migrated to the water for hunting reasons and evolved to cope with their new environment. Some whales still have leftovers of the back-leg's bones.

Rorquals are the largest group of baleen whales and all members of this family have a series of folds on their bellies, except for the sei whale and the common minke whale, which have shorter grooves. Rorquals are slender and streamlined shaped and have narrow, elongated flippers. Their dorsal fin is situated about two-thirds the way back. They feed by gulping in water and pushing it through their baleen plate with their tongue. Whales in this family are: the blue whale, the fin whale, the sei whale, the Bryde's whale, the minke whale, the humpback whale, ...

Their ears are different from terrestrial mammals to be able to hear underwater. Their tiny ear is made so that it can close underwater and produces layers of earwax that form a sort of earplug that actually works as a hearing aid. The similar densities of water and the earwax allows sound to travel into the ear unhindered (which wouldn't be possible if the ear was filled with air!). The layers can be colored differently because of the keratin in the wax, which is influenced by the periods of migration or the feeding habits of the whale. This means you can learn a lot about a whale's age, migrations and eating habits by looking only at their earwax! 

 

sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorqual

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/when-whales-walked-on-four-legs.html 

Humpback Whales

Megaptera noveangliae

 

Their latin name means "big wing of New England" referring to their giant pectoral fins, which can grow up to 16 feet long, and their appearance off the coast of New England where European whalers first encountered them.

Type: Baleen Whale

Weight: 40 tons 

Size:

Diet: Omnivor

Group Name: Pod 

Appearance: Dark back, light belly, pleats on throat, small hump in front of their dorsal fins

Humpback whales are known for their long wing-like fins and their songs which can travel for more than 15 thousand kms through the ocean. Their howls are complex and can continue for hours on end and their range of frequencies are from 30 Hz to about 8kHz, which means humans can only hear their songs partly. Whales from the same breeding ground sing in nearly identical tunes and population's songs evolve from year to year into new melodies.

sources:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/humpback-whale 

'Whales, Dolphins and Seals: A field Guide to the Marine Mammals of the World' - Hadoram Shirihai, Brett Jarrett

https://journeynorth.org/tm/hwhale/SingingHumpback.html

https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/marine-mammals/whale-earwax-what-you-can-learn-strange-collections