Cetaceans is a family of large marine mammals, consisting of whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Whales are huge animals that are viewed as living marvels. But other than their large size, they are actually similar to humans in several ways. Whales are warm-blooded mammals with a thick, insulative layer of blubber, or fat. Just like humans, whales drink their mother’s milk during their childhood. Whales can also make friends, grieve, and feel many other emotions.
There are two main groupings of cetaceans: mysticetes and odontocetes. Mysticetes are whales that have baleen, or bristle-like formations in their mouths that strain the food from the water. Baleen is made up of proteins, the same proteins of which fingernails and hair is formed from. The color, size, and number of baleen plates is unique to each species. They mostly eat plankton, krill, and small fish. There are three types of mysticetes, skimmers, gulpers, and suckers, classified by how they obtain food. Skimmers swim through patches of plankton or other sustenances with open mouths, letting their baleen catch and trap the food. Gulpers have pleats that fill up with water before pushing it through their baleen to capture food in the water. Suckers, as their name implies, suck amphipods (a type of crustacean) from the bottom of the ocean. They also suck up tons of mod and water along with the food, so they force the mixture through their baleen to strain out the amphipods.
Odontocetes is the other main group of cetaceans, containing all whales that have teeth. Dolphins and porpoises are also included in the odontocetes category. Toothed whales often eat larger fish, squid, octopus, and more. Even though they eat much bigger prey, odontocetes are usually smaller than mysticetes. However, the toothed whales don’t use their teeth for chewing. They often swallow their food whole, or in big pieces. The tusk of a narwhal is actually one giant tooth! Odontocetes commonly use echolocation to find prey. Echolocation is the way some animals locate objects or other organisms by listening to echoes, or reflected sounds.
The blue whale is a well-known mysticete, famous for being the biggest creature to live on Earth ever. They can grow up to 98ft long and weigh up to 200 tons. Imagine, most humans aren’t even 6 feet tall! And humans don’t just eat small foods like krill. Blue whales from the southern hemisphere are usually larger than those from the northern hemisphere, and females tend to be bigger than males. Newborns can be 23ft long, and up to 3 tons. During the first 6-7 months, the babies drink over a 100 gallons of their mother’s fatty milk every day. Their diet of milk leads to babies putting on 250lbs of weight every day! After those first 6-7 months, the whales have gotten twice as long and don’t need their mother’s milk anymore. Blue whales typically stay with their mothers for about the first year of their life, and fully mature at 5-10 years. Like humans, they live for about 80 years.
Many types of whales are endangered because of commercial whaling, which is hunting whales to sell products such as meat, oil, and fats. For example, the heads of sperm whales contain large amounts of spermaceti, a type of oil. This oil is valuable as lamp fuel, and can be used to make other products like creams. Many sperm whales were killed for the oil. Now, new threats endanger whales, such as plastic pollution. Abandoned or lost fishing nets are a large portion of the plastic pollution in oceans worldwide. Whales and many other marine animals often get tangled in fishing nets in the ocean, and are injured or killed as the nets restrict their movement. Some fishermen simply cut their fishing nets when an animal gets tangled in it, leaving them to die. You can help the whales and other marine animals by speaking against the harm that humans perpetrate. We also need to start trying to adapt our technology to lessen its impact on the environment. Some companies are trying to develop biodegradable nets, or nets that have technology that allow fishermen to track them (here is an article on a more environmentally-friendly net: http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/11/19/biodegradable-gps-tagged-fishing-net-could-help-save-dolphins-and-whales). But a big problem for producing these products is that not many people buy them, as they rather buy products that are cheaper but aren’t environmentally-friendly. You can also help out by supporting laws and petitions that would benefit whales, and donate to whale charities.
There are over 90 species of cetaceans. Here are some examples.
For some reason, there have been some major whale strandings occurring. Hundreds have already died. This is a devastating blow, especially since some whale populations have already declined drastically. Here are some links to articles where you can get more information:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/australia/tasmania-pilot-whale-stranding-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/23/australia/tasmania-whale-stranding-new-pod-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
To help out the whales, you can donate to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation through this link: https://adopt-us.whales.org/shop/donate-today/
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