Males typically mate with more than one female ( polygyny), although the degree of polygyny varies with the species. Right whales skim-feed, meaning they use their enlarged head to effectively take in a large amount of water and sieve the slow-moving prey. Rorquals are specialized at lunge-feeding, and have a streamlined body to reduce drag while accelerating. Gray whales are specialized for feeding on bottom-dwelling crustaceans. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep warm in the cold water.Īlthough baleen whales are widespread, most species prefer the colder waters of the Arctic and Antarctic. Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. Baleen whales have fused neck vertebrae, and are unable to turn their heads at all. Baleen whales use their baleen plates to filter out food from the water by either lunge-feeding or skim-feeding. The fin whale is the fastest baleen whale, recorded swimming at 10 m/s (36 km/h 22 mph). Baleen whales can have streamlined or large bodies, depending on the feeding behavior, and two limbs that are modified into flippers. Baleen whales split from toothed whales (Odontoceti) around 34 million years ago.īaleen whales range in size from the 6 m (20 ft) and 3,000 kg (6,600 lb) pygmy right whale to the 31 m (102 ft) and 190 t (210 short tons) blue whale, the largest known animal to have ever existed.

While cetaceans were historically thought to have descended from mesonychians, molecular evidence instead supports them as a clade of even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla). There are currently 16 species of baleen whales. Mysticeti comprises the families Balaenidae ( right and bowhead whales), Balaenopteridae ( rorquals), Eschrichtiidae (the gray whale) and Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale). Clockwise from top left: humpback whale, gray whale, North Atlantic right whale, and common minke whaleīaleen whales ( / b ə ˈ l iː n/), also known as whalebone whales, are marine mammals of the parvorder Mysticeti in the infraorder Cetacea ( whales, dolphins and porpoises), which use keratinaceous baleen plates (or 'whalebone') in their mouths to sieve planktonic creatures from the water.

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