5 Species Of Whales, The Ocean Giants
The largest family of cetaceans, known as “whales”, inhabit most of the world’s oceans. In the following article, we’ll talk about some species of whales, these giants of the seas.
What are the species of whales?
The entire family of whales is characterized by their throat folds, which expand dramatically when they feed (they swallow large amounts of water and filter it through their beards).
Another typical aspect of these species is that their skull is completely flat and straight. Some of them are:
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Common Whale
Also called ‘common rorqual’, it is the second largest animal on the planet (after the blue whale), as it can measure up to 24 meters.
Its body is gray, its belly is whitish and, despite its size and weight (about 70 tons), it is quite slender.
The Fin Whale (the image that opens this article) lives in the Atlantic Ocean and is in danger of extinction due to hunting, especially off the coasts of Japan, Norway and Iceland.
In terms of diet, she mainly eats krill , small fish, shellfish and squid.
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Blue Whale
It is the largest animal in the world, as it exceeds 27 meters in length and 100 tons in weight. The body is stylized, bluish in color, with a light belly.
It has three-foot-long beards on the sides of its mouth that allow it to filter the water and ingest up to four tons of krill a day.
The blue whale lived in all oceans until the 20th century, but today it is mostly seen in the Atlantic and the North Pacific. Due to hunting, it is in danger of extinction.
Not much is known about their behavior, although it is known that females give birth to only one offspring at a time, after 12 months of gestation, and that they sing at high frequencies.
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minke whale
It is the smallest of the whale species (measuring a maximum of 10 meters and weighing 10 tons), and the fastest.
Its body is white at the ends and black at the center, very compact, with fine pectoral fins and pointed ends.
The minke whale lives in the Northern Hemisphere and crosses the different seas in search of food, to reproduce and give birth. Thanks to its more than 300 beards, it can filter water and feed on krill.
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bryde whale
Also small in size, the bryde (or Eden) whale is a cetacean whose body is dark gray except for its belly, which is yellowish-white.
It measures about 12 meters and has three parallel grooves between the head and the spiracle (the hole through which it releases water when breathing). It has very small fins compared to the body and the dorsal is sickle-shaped.
This marine species gathers with other individuals when food is plentiful, although it has solitary habits.
It swims at great depths and can travel up to 30 km/h. It prefers the warm, subtropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans. As for the diet, it is composed of fish, crustaceans, octopus and squid.
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antarctic minke whale
The Antarctic minke is another species of whale and one of the few that lives only in the southern hemisphere.
During the summer, it stays in Antarctica, and when winter comes, it heads north, although it only reaches the equator.
The Antarctic minke whale is one of the smallest, as it measures a maximum of 11 meters – females are larger than males – and weighs about nine tons. Its body is black on the back and white on the belly.
