•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