Whale

            Whales are members of the order Cetacea, which also includes dolphins and porpoises. They are the largest mammals, the largest vertebrates, and the largest known animals in the world.
Unlike fish, which breathe air using gills, whales breathe air through blowholes that lead into their lungs.
Whales are those cetaceans that are neither dolphins (i.e. members of the families Delphinidae or Platanistoidea) nor porpoises (several families). This can lead to some confusion because Orcas ("killer whales") and pilot whales have "whale" in their name, but they are dolphins for the purpose of classification. Sometimes the terminology whale is used to refer to all cetaceans, including dolphins and porpoises, but generally it is used for particular families within Cetacea.

Did you know?

Whales are the largest mammals, the largest vertebrates, and the largest known animals in the world.

Whales, whose representatives include the largest animals that have ever appeared on Earth, are celebrated in art, music, and literature. Yet, they have also been subject to severe overhunting, habitat destruction, and competition for resources. Many species of whales have ended up on the list of endangered species, and humpbacked whales alone declined by an estimated 95 percent in just the twentieth century. As stewards of creation, humanity has a responsibility to better understand and conserve these remarkable animals, which combine grace, power, intelligence, and beauty.


Whales, along with most dolphins and porpoises, are descendants of land-living mammals, most likely of the Artiodactyl order. They are considered to have entered the water roughly 50 million years ago.

Baleen hair is attached to the baleen plate

Cetaceans are divided into two suborders:

• The baleen whales (Mysticeti) are characterized by the baleen, a sieve-like structure in the upper jaw made of the tough, structural protein keratin. The baleen is used to filter plankton from the water. Baleen whales are the largest whales. They are characterized by two blowholes. The families of baleen whales include the Balaenopteridae (humpback whales, fin whales, Sei Whale, and others), the Balaenidae (right and bowhead whales), the Eschrichtiidae (gray whale), and the Neobalaenidae (pygmy right whales), among others. The Balaenopteridae family (rorquals) also includes the Blue Whale, the world's largest animal, and perhaps the largest animal ever to roam the earth. It reaches 30 meters (93 feet) long and can weigh up to 180 tons.
• The toothed whales (Odontoceti) have teeth and prey on fish, squid, or both. This suborder includes dolphins and porpoises as well as whales. An outstanding ability of this group is to sense their surrounding environment through echolocation. Toothed whales have only one blowhole. In addition to numerous species of dolphins and porpoises, this suborder includes the Beluga whale and the sperm whale, which may be the largest toothed animal to ever inhabit Earth. Families of toothed whales include the Monodontidae (belugas, narwhals), Kogiidae (Pygmy and dwarf sperm whales), Physteridae (sperm whale), and Ziphidae (beaked whales).