Categories :

What are the two types of whales?

What are the two types of whales?

There are two types of whales: toothed and baleen. Toothed whales, as the name suggests, have teeth, which are used to hunt and eat squid, fish, and seals. Toothed whales include sperm whales, as well as dolphins, porpoises, and orcas, among others.

What are 4 types of whales called?

Types Of Whales

  • BALEEN WHALES. These types of whales, scientifically known as Mysticeti, are sometimes called “mustached whales” because of the baleen plates in the gums that run alongside a whale’s lower jaw.
  • Blue.
  • Bowhead.
  • Fin.
  • Gray.
  • Humpback.
  • Minke.
  • Right.

What do baleen whales have two of that toothed whales have only one of?

Answer: Toothed whales have one blowhole, while baleen whales have two blowholes! There is a theory that baleen whales have two blowholes because of their massive size and the amount of time they spend underwater.

What is the difference between Odontocetes and mysticetes?

Generally, odontocetes are smaller than mysticetes. Odontocetes are also more social than mysticetes, and live together in family groups called pods. While all cetaceans have two nostrils, odontocetes have a muscular flap covering one nostril. Thus, odontocetes only have one blowhole.

What is the fastest whale ever?

Fin whales
5. Fin whales are the fastest of all great whales capable of swimming up to 23 miles per hour (23 kmph).

What is the rarest whale?

spade-toothed whale
Based on its scarcity, only two intact animals having been seen in the last 140 years, the spade-toothed whale is the world’s rarest whale.

Can whales eat humans?

Despite occasional reports of whales scooping people into their mouths, it’s incredibly rare—and for all but one species, swallowing a human is physically impossible. On Friday, a lobster diver made headlines when he described miraculously surviving being “swallowed” by a humpback whale off Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Is a sperm whale a Mysticetes?

Cetaceans are animals that were amphibious who came back into the water. There are two families of whales the Mysticetes (mustache whales) and the Odontocetes, the toothed whales. Sperm whales are the only odontocetes that don’t fit into either dolphin or porpoise categories. …

Why are Mysticetes called mustache whales?

Mysticetes, quite literally means, “mustache whales,” named after all the bristly, hairy baleen in their mouths. Baleen is an elaborate structure made of hundreds of plates hanging from the upper jaw, while the inner surface makes a dense mat of hair acting as a strainer.

What are the characteristics of a toothed whale?

Toothed whales have torpedo-shaped bodies with inflexible necks, limbs modified into flippers, nonexistent external ear flaps, a large tail fin, and bulbous heads (with the exception of sperm whales).

How many different types of whales are there?

There are nearly 90 species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises in the order Cetacea , which is divided into two suborders, the Odontocetes, or toothed whales, and the Mysticetes, or toothless baleen whales.

What is a toothed whale?

Toothed whale. The toothed whales (systematic name Odontoceti ) are a parvorder of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales possessing teeth, such as the beaked whales and sperm whales.