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Baleen is a filter-feeding system inside the mouths of baleen whales. To use baleen, the whale first opens its mouth underwater to take in water. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and remain as a food source for the whale. Baleen is similar to bristles and consists of keratin, the same ...
Baleen whales can have streamlined or large bodies, depending on the feeding behavior, and two limbs that are modified into flippers. The fin whale is the fastest baleen whale, recorded swimming at 10 m/s (36 km/h; 22 mph). Baleen whales use their baleen plates to filter out food from the water by either lunge-feeding or skim-feeding
Whale oil is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. [1] Oil from the bowhead whale was sometimes known as train-oil , which comes from the Dutch word traan ("tear drop"). Sperm oil , a special kind of oil obtained from the head cavities of sperm whales , differs chemically from ordinary whale oil: it is composed mostly of liquid wax .
The bowhead whale is the only baleen whale to spend its entire life in the Arctic and subarctic waters. [37] The Alaskan population spends the winter months in the southwestern Bering Sea. The group migrates northward in the spring, following openings in the ice, into the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. [38]
It is one of Earth's most haunting sounds - the "singing" of baleen whales like the humpback, heard over vast distances in the watery realm. Baleen whales - a group that includes the blue whale ...
Most baleen whales reside at the poles. To prevent the unborn baleen whale calves from dying of frostbite, the baleen mother must migrate to warmer calving/mating grounds. They will then stay there for a matter of months until the calf has developed enough blubber to survive the bitter temperatures of the poles.
Whaling is the practice of hunting whales, mainly baleen and sperm whales. This activity has gone on since the Stone Age. [91] In the Middle Ages, reasons for whaling included their meat, oil usable as fuel and the jawbone, which was used in house construction. At the end of the Middle Ages, early whaling fleets aimed at baleen whales, such as ...
The family Balaenidae, the right whales, contains two genera and four species. All right whales have no ventral grooves; a distinctive head shape with a strongly arched, narrow rostrum, bowed lower jaw; lower lips that enfold the sides and front of the rostrum; and long, narrow, elastic baleen plates (up to nine times longer than wide) with fine baleen fringes.