Is a whale a fish or a mammal? Types of whales. What do whales eat and how do they breathe? How are the tail fins of fish and whales different? Do killer whales have gills?
Some of the whales are among the largest animals in the world. Biologists distinguish two suborders of whales: toothed and baleen. There are about 80 species of toothed whales, and only 10 of baleen whales. The body length of toothed whales ranges between 1.3 and 20 m, and the weight is from 30 kg to 40 tons. The body length of baleen whales ranges from 5 to 35 m, weight 4.5 -135 tons. The forelimbs of all whales turned into hard pectoral fins, and the hind limbs and pelvis disappeared completely. However, several bones from the pelvis remained in the skeleton. Whales have a large head and a vertical tail fin. They swim in all the oceans of the planet.
Toothed whales, as their name suggests, have teeth in their mouths. They are predators, hunting cephalopods and fish, as well as penguins and seals. The most famous among them is the sperm whale (Physeter catodon), with a body length of up to 20 m and a weight of up to 40 tons. Significantly smaller than the sperm whale is the pilot whale, or ball-headed dolphin (Globicephala melaena), with a black-brown color and a body length of about 8 m, and grayish - white beluga whale (body length up to 6.5 m). A close relative of the pilot whale, the black and white killer whale (Orcinus orca) (body length up to 8 m, weight 7 tons) is a large and predatory dolphin, about which ominous legends circulate among sailors.
The most famous group of toothed whales are dolphins. These animals are known to everyone from dolphinariums and television programs. Usually we are talking about the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), reaching a length of 4 m and a weight of 350 kg. At the end of the 20th century it was estimated at 5 million.
In the mouth of baleen whales there is a filtering apparatus made of narrow vertical plates with a bristle-like fringe. These plates form a filter in which different animals get stuck. Baleen whales open their mouths, take in water, and close them again. They then squeeze out the water, but the food remains on the plates.
The most famous species of baleen whales are the dwarf right whale (Caperea marginata), the gray whale, the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) and, above all, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). The dwarf right whale (body length up to 6.5 m, weight up to 3.5 tons) is the most common of the baleen whales. Its population is estimated at 300 thousand animals. The humpback whale (body length 19 m, weight 45 tons) is the most interesting to observe. This powerful animal sometimes jumps out of the water many times in a row.
The blue whale is the largest animal currently existing on Earth. It reaches a length of 35 m and a mass of up to 130 tons, which is equal to the mass of 30 elephants, 150 cars or 1600 people. Due to modern fishing techniques, the blue whale is today on the verge of destruction. Its number is estimated at only 10 thousand individuals.
The fin whale (B. physalus) is smaller in size than the blue one: its length is only 19.5-21 m. This slender animal has a fairly high speed - 14-17 km/h; if it is frightened, the speed will increase to 25-30 km/h , and at the moment of the jerk it can even exceed 40 km/h. Unfortunately, the number of fin whales is declining every year.
Gray whale (Eschrichtius gibbosus)
| Magnitude | Body length 12–15 m, weight 25–30 t |
| Signs | Large baleen whale; the pointed head is slightly compressed from the sides; body color is gray-brown with numerous light spots; the body is overgrown with many barnacles |
| Nutrition | Benthic invertebrates, crustaceans, sponges, worms and other small animals |
| Reproduction | Pregnancy for about 1 year; 1 cub; newborn weight 700–1200 kg |
| Habitats | East coast of Russia and west coast of North America from the Bering Sea (fatten in summer) to the Gulf of California (gives babies); regular annual migration from north to south and back; population is estimated at 12 thousand individuals |
Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas)
| Magnitude | Body length 4–6.5 m, weight 500–1400 kg |
| Signs | Medium sized whale; round head with a convex forehead (“melon”); dorsal fin missing; The color of young animals is gray, adults are pure white |
| Nutrition | Fish, as well as crustaceans, mollusks and worms; searches for food both at the bottom and in the middle layers of the sea |
| Reproduction | Pregnancy for about 1 year; 1 cub; birth weight about 70 kg, body length about 1.5 m; Cubs are born in July - August |
| Habitats | Swims close to the shore, especially loves fjords and estuaries of large rivers; can sometimes swim into rivers; distributed in the Arctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere; total number of 15-20 thousand animals |
Whales
Of all the mammals that inhabit the Earth, the largest are whales. They are toothy and mustachioed. The former include sperm whales, killer whales, dolphins, porpoises, and beluga whales; they have teeth with which they grab prey. There are 23 species of toothed whales in the seas of the USSR, and only 9 species of baleen whales. In baleen whales, instead of teeth, 300-400 triangular horny plates hang from both sides of the upper jaw. This is the “mustache”. The length of such plates sometimes reaches 4 m.
In some species of baleen whales, the belly is furrowed with numerous longitudinal folds - such whales are called minke whales; others have a smooth belly - these are right whales; the third - gray whales - have 2-3 folds on the throat. They got their name because of their gray body color. All whales swim and dive quickly; their body shape is very similar to fish, only the blades of their caudal fin are located horizontally, not vertically. But they cannot be classified as fish: they are sea animals. Whales breathe through their lungs, have a constant body temperature, give birth to live young and feed them with milk.
The female carries the baby for a whole year. It is born under the surface of the sea. The newborn is born quite large - only 2-3 times smaller than the mother, sighted and mobile. He follows his mother everywhere, who feeds him milk for more than six months. Milk is half fat; it is 8-10 times more nutritious than cow's milk, which is why whales grow so quickly. The cub does not have soft lips, and it does not suck milk. The cub only tightly grasps the mother's nipple with the tip of his mouth, and the mother squeezes special muscles on her belly and injects milk directly into his mouth.
A group jump of trained dolphins in a lagoon in the Hawaiian Islands.
Toothed whales. - sperm whales. The length of large male sperm whales reaches 20 m, females are half that size. Sperm whales live in small herds. A herd of females is usually led by a male. Such herds are found in the tropics, but it happens that they also appear off the coast of Kamchatka.
Even a large ship will have a bad time if a sperm whale hits it with its head! And it is huge, weighs about twenty tons - almost as much as the entire body of a whale, and is shaped like a mooring bollard - blunt, as if chopped off at the front. The lower jaw is elongated and has approximately 50 shiny, sharp teeth. Above the upper jaw of the sperm whale there is a huge fat pad - the spermaceti sac.
Whales: 1 - bowhead whale; 2 - blue (blue) whale; 3 - fin whale; 4 - sei whale; 5 - minke whale; 6 - gray whale: 7 - humpback whale; c - sperm whale (male); 9 - sperm whale (female).
One killed sperm whale, an eighteen-meter giant, had 400 squid 20-30 meters long in its stomach. Sometimes sperm whales attack very large squids, up to 12 m long. When hunting for squid, sperm whales often dive to great depths - to the very bottom, where only deep-sea animals can live. There is a known case when a sperm whale became entangled in an underwater cable and broke it at a depth of about a thousand meters.
A special structure of the body allows it to descend to such depths and for a long period of time (up to one hour). The sperm whale has only one nostril at the end of its snout - the left one, and the right one ends in a large subcutaneous air sac. In it, the sperm whale carries an additional supply of air to depth, using it for sound signaling and as an oxygen reserve. The sperm whale also stores a large amount of oxygen using the coloring substance hemoglobin contained in the muscles - the so-called myoglobin. The blood flow of a diving sperm whale is redistributed so that the brain and heart muscle are primarily supplied with oxygen.
Killer whales and dolphins. Sometimes in the sea you can find herds of relatively large toothed whales, 5-7 m long. They have high dorsal fins and bright white spots above the eyes. These are sea predators - killer whales. They attack seals, seals, dolphins, and sometimes even a large whale, open its mouth and tear out its soft fat tongue, trying to drown the giant. Sometimes a whale, pursued by these predators, is thrown ashore in fear and here most often dies from overheating, since its body develops too high a temperature that the air cannot cool. Killer whales are afraid to attack a sperm whale - its teeth are too strong and its strength is not small.
Now killer whales have begun to be kept in captivity in huge sea basins - aquariums - in the USA, Canada, England, Japan and other countries. It turned out that these are fast learning animals that are easy to train. The performance of trained killer whales is shown to the general public. The smallest whales - dolphins - can be found in the Black Sea. There are 50 species of them in the World Ocean.
Dolphins: 1 - small killer whale; 2 - large killer whale; 3 - gray dolphin; 4 - grind; 5 - beluga whale; 6 - narwhal (unicorn); 7 - porpoise; 8 - common dolphin; 9 -- bottlenose dolphin.
Most dolphin species live in warm waters, some in temperate waters, and only a few in cold waters. In our Arctic seas live large six-meter dolphins without a dorsal fin - beluga whales (white dolphins) and narwhals (spotted), the males of which are armed with a straight bony tusk up to 2-3 m long. Freshwater dolphins live in the rivers of South America and India - the Amazonian inia and susuk. Since they live in murky waters and obtain food by burrowing in the muddy bottom, their vision is poorly developed, and their long beaks have tactile hairs. The common dolphin, which lives in our Black Sea, has about 200 sharp teeth; with them he holds slippery fish.
Dolphins are gregarious animals with a streamlined and well-controlled body, swimming swiftly almost at the speed of passenger trains. Vigorous movements cause excess heat in their body, which they transfer to sea water through their fins. When a dolphin is pulled out of the water, if it is struggling, its fins are hot.
Dolphins perfectly navigate in water using the method of echolocation: first they make clicking sounds, and then they catch the echo of these sounds reflected from surrounding objects. They produce a variety of sounds with the help of a special sound-signaling organ, which is located in the nostril and consists of muscles and three pairs of air sacs. With the help of the same organ, a dolphin can copy human words, like a parrot. Dolphins' hearing is very delicate: they can hear ultrasounds with a frequency of up to 200 kHz, and humans hear sound vibrations of no more than 20 kHz. The brain of dolphins is very large; the shape and number of convolutions in the cerebral cortex resembles the human brain.
Nowadays, dolphins are used as circus and laboratory animals. They are kept and studied here and abroad in special pools. Scientists are studying the skin of fast-moving dolphins in order to create the skin of high-speed ships in its likeness; they are trying to create the same portable and interference-resistant devices - echolocators - that dolphins possess (see article “Biology for Technology”). These animals are easy to train and learn various tricks. It is possible that in the near future dolphins will be domesticated. They will help fishermen find schools of fish, drive them into nets, serve for communication and assist aquanauts in various underwater work. Taming dolphins will help humans master the riches of the sea.
Baleen whales. The largest animal in the world is the baleen whale. The length of this minke whale reaches 33 m, and it weighs up to 150 tons (about 25-30 African elephants weigh the same). Longitudinal folds stretch along its belly. The heart of a large whale weighs up to half a ton, the tongue weighs up to 3 tons, and the lungs can hold up to 14 m 3 of air. A blue whale, moving at a speed of 33-37 km/h, can develop a power of 500 hp. With.
Blue whales feed on small fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. To feed itself, such a giant needs to catch hundreds of kilograms of small animals. This is where his “mustache” comes in. Having found a place where there are many crustaceans, the whale opens its mouth and swims forward. The water is filtered between the plates, and the crustaceans get stuck in the “whiskers”, like in a sieve. Then he closes his mouth and swallows the prey. One and a half tons of large crustaceans were once removed from the stomach of a caught blue whale.
These whales begin to reproduce at the age of five. By the age of 20, their growth stops, although they live up to 50 years. Blue whales feed in the northern and southern cold seas, and give birth to their calves in warm ones.
Much more common in our waters is the fin whale, or minke whale, a medium-length whale (18-20 m). His belly is snow-white, and his “mustaches” are blue. Like the blue whale, the fin whale lives far from the coast, but, chasing fish, occasionally even enters the mouths of large rivers.
A huge variety of living creatures lives on earth and in the world's oceans. Biologists divide them into orders, species and subspecies. This is quite justified, since sometimes it is very difficult to attribute this or that animal to a certain species.
However, if living creatures and organisms located on land have been more or less studied, then those that live and swim in the sea are a storehouse of scientific discoveries in biology for ecologists.
Speaking about the currently studied animals of the world's oceans, “cetaceans” occupy a special place. The most commonly used name is “whales”. Despite the fact that whales live in the ocean, they cannot be called fish. They are together with dolphins, beluga whales and killer whales belong to the order of mammals.
The structure of the caudal fins of fish and whales
Whales and fish have fundamentally different structures and breathing methods. Fish need fins to move in water. Whales move in water in a fundamentally different way. Due to the peculiarities of their structure, they swim using their tail. Perhaps this part of the whale's body is the strongest.
Speaking about how the tail fins of fish and whales differ, we can highlight the main characteristics for both types:
- Whales, whose tail fin is horizontal, allow them to move easily in the water in a wave-like manner;
- The fish has a caudal fin located vertically.
This difference is not accidental. Both species of animals in question, despite the fact that they are constantly in water, have a completely different skeleton, method of oxygen saturation, reproduction, feeding of offspring and different skin structure.
Fish
Speaking of fish and way of breathing, the following characteristics of these cold-blooded animals are distinguished:
- They breathe using a filter organ. With their help, fish filter oxygen from the water. As a result, they do not need to directly obtain oxygen from the atmosphere.
- Fish reproduction occurs through the development of an embryo from an egg.
- The skin is protected by scales.
Whales
To breathe, whales need to rise to the surface from time to time and take a breath and hold their breath for a long time. Underwater, these mammals, after inhaling, can spend up to one and a half hours. The horizontally located fin allows you to quickly float to the surface of the water if necessary. The fin also allows it to easily hold its blowhole above the water, since the respiratory organ is located at the top of its head.
Based on the above, we can conclude that whales have pulmonary respiration and are warm-blooded. The skin is often smooth without scales, however, the presence of remnants of fur is also observed. Whales develop in utero, and milk feeding of the offspring occurs.
Scientists tend to classify whales as belonging to the group of “ceto-ungulates.” This group does not belong to the systematic group of animals studied. The fact is that there is a certain theory about the origin of whales from ancient animals that looked like a modern wolf, which, however, had hooves like cows and other artiodactyls. Their modern scientific name "mesonychia". This is a species of ancient mammal that lived about 50 million years ago. It is believed that mesonychians lived on land, but hunted in the water, on the coasts of the ancient sea.
After a certain period of time, this species of artiodactyl animals, continuing to lead a semi-aquatic lifestyle, began to evolve. Their bodies took on a more streamlined shape. A powerful tail appeared, replacing the hind limbs. The front pair of limbs and hooves gradually took the form of flippers, and this is how fins appeared.
Gradually deposited under the skin thick layer of fat. The fur has disappeared from the body. The skin became smooth. Speaking of the nostrils, they have also undergone some changes. Being in water almost all the time, it became necessary to adapt to breathing in it. The nostrils moved to the top of the head. So soon the blowholes appeared.
Modern whales and cetaceans are shaped like torpedoes. This body structure facilitates rapid movement in water. The disappearance of hair from the skin also implies a decrease in friction. The skin itself is very elastic and elastic. The undeniable advantage of whale skin is that it is practically not wetted. All these factors are certainly advantages for developing good speed in the water.
Skeletal structure
The whale skeleton has all departments inherent in mammals. However, these sections are slightly modified and adapted for life in water. The massive head with beak merges almost smoothly into the body. But the whale skeleton still has a small cervical region. The body gradually descends to the tail.
whale head
The whale's head is a skull, fully adapted to specific breathing. The nostrils have already been mentioned; they are shifted to the crown, and the bones of the crown are shifted so that they come into contact with the upper occipital bone. The jaw bones are elongated, which is associated with the development of the filtering apparatus.
These mammals do not have teeth; it is better to say that they atrophied and located in the jawbone. The teeth in the oral cavity were replaced by a huge number of horny plates. They are called whalebone.
Tail and fins
The tail of a cetacean is perhaps the strongest and densest part of the skeleton. At the end of the tail, paired blades located horizontally are quite often found. On the back of almost all species of cetaceans there is a dorsal fin, a depth stabilizer. He is unpaired.
The fins of the caudal and dorsal fin are just skin formations. Inside them there is only connective cartilage tissue.
Whale fins also perform a thermoregulatory function. To prevent the whale's body from overheating, whale fins remove excess heat.
In cetacean mammals, only the forelimbs have been preserved. Having evolved, they turned into strong pectoral fins, the carpal parts of which are often fused. Basically they are some kind of depth regulators and “collar collars”.
Whales do not have hind limbs. Despite this, scientists sometimes observe and find in some skeletons the remains of pelvic bones, scientifically called rudiments.
In conclusion, we can conclude that the fins of fish and whales are different due to the evolution of whales from amphibians to ocean dwellers. The horizontal position of the fins is due to a specific way of breathing, thus making it easier and faster for whales to float to the surface and take a breath.
Whale
The smallest animals are tiny shrews. Their body barely reaches four centimeters in length, they weigh only two grams, or even less.
Whales are also mammals, just like shrews. But if among the shrews there are crumbs, then some of the whales are giants.
Blue whales are the largest of the whales. They can be up to 33 meters long. It takes fifty steps to walk past such a whale when it lies on the shore. This hulk weighs 120 tons!
Compare with the tiny shrew. The blue whale is 800 times longer than her. 60 million shrews need to be collected to balance the scales on which lies just one blue whale.
The liver of such a whale weighs at least a ton. And the length of its intestines is 250 meters. A quarter of a kilometer of guts! A whale's lungs can hold 14 thousand liters of air in one breath.
Forty or even fifty three-ton ships are needed to transport one large blue whale. Such a convoy of cars will stretch for almost a kilometer.
The thirty-three-meter whale is not only the largest of modern animals. There were no such giants on earth in past times.
Two hundred to three hundred million years ago, giant lizards lived on earth. But the largest of them was far from the blue whale. The largest of the dinosaurs weighed about 80 tons. True, it reached a length of 26 - 27 meters, but a fair share of these meters was the long tail of the lizard.
Sea giants are larger than land giants. This is no coincidence. Living conditions on land are unfavorable for giants. It is more difficult to move here, and it is more difficult to feed yourself.
Water is much denser than air. An animal in water seems to lose weight. It becomes lighter exactly as much as the weight of the water it displaces. A cubic meter of water weighs approximately one ton. An animal with a volume of one cubic meter in water becomes one ton lighter: that’s how much the water it displaces weighs.
Specific gravity plays a huge role in the life of aquatic animals. With a specific gravity equal to one, the animal seems to hang in the water. The largest whales have a specific gravity almost equal to one. The giant does not need to expend much strength to stay in the upper layers of the water so as not to fall to the bottom. He does not feel any discomfort from his heaviness.
On land, the severity immediately affects. Look at the common crayfish. It is very agile in the water, but crawls slowly along the shore. Why? On land he became heavier, it was more difficult for him to move: after all, he did not become stronger on the shore.
Once on the shore, the whale does not live very long. He can't breathe on land.
Like all mammals, the whale breathes through its lungs. The lungs are an organ of air respiration. To breathe, the whale rises to the surface of the water. And suddenly on land - oddly enough - the whale dies of suffocation!
The weight of the whale had an effect. Once ashore, the whale became much heavier. And now, under the weight of the whale’s body, its internal organs are compressed. Keith gasps, his compressed lungs stop working.
A giant weighing 120 tons would barely move on land. In water, such a giant can be very mobile. And whales are a living example of this.
You can tell about an aquatic animal whether it is a good swimmer at first glance. The streamlined body shape is the main feature.
Whales have a fish-like body shape, a powerful tail, and strong muscles. The total weight of the muscles of a thirty-meter whale is 60 - 70 tons. This amount of muscle can generate approximately 1,700 horsepower. A whale swims at a speed of 20 kilometers per hour, large whales can swim at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour.
The power of whales is well known to those who deal with them - whalers. It is not uncommon for a harpooned whale to drag a ship with a displacement of 300 - 350 tons. "Full back!" - the captain commanded. The ship's engine was working with all its might, and the whale was dragging the ship behind it. Yes, how he dragged - at a speed of 14 kilometers per hour!
It is much easier for a giant to feed itself in water than on land. There is an abundance of food in the ocean. True, it is not distributed evenly here, but in separate clusters. But these accumulations are such that there is enough food in them for more than one giant.
Tiny calanus crustaceans swim in the upper layers of water. There are often so many of them that for many kilometers the water is colored reddish and looks like liquid porridge. A lump of five hundred thousand of these crustaceans is equal in volume to one liter.
A blue whale's stomach contains up to 15 thousand liters of small crustaceans. A female blue whale feeding her baby with milk eats 4 - 5 tons of food per day. And what food! Animal, not plant. Much more plant food would be needed. Is it easy for such an animal to feed itself on land? And in the oceans there live many huge animals and they are all well-fed.
While feeding or hiding from danger, a whale can stay underwater for half an hour or even longer. Toothed whales, sperm whales, sometimes remain under water for one and a half to two hours: the supply of air in their air cavities of the skull and in the lungs is so large.
Having risen to the surface of the water, the whale exhales spent air from its nostrils. He does this in several stages, quickly and with great force. Fountains appear over the water one after another.
Different breeds of whales have different fountains: high and low, narrow and wide, simple and double. The number of fountains thrown out in a row also varies.
The fountain is a sign of a whale. Whalers are watching for a fountain to appear above the water. It will tell you which whale has appeared.
There was a long debate about how this fountain was formed. Many claimed that he was a merman. And often the drawings depicted whales throwing out a high stream of water from their nostrils.
Accurate observations showed that the fountain was not water. This is warm air.
The whale's body temperature is 35 - 40 degrees. The temperature of the air exhaled by a whale is also the same. This air is rich in water vapor, which quickly cools and thickens when it gets outside. A column of steam appears.
There may also be water splashes in the fountain. This means that the whale exhaled air at the very surface of the water. A layer of water remained above the nostrils, and a strong stream of air threw up its spray.
It happens that a whale actually throws out a water fountain. But only a wounded, dying whale does this. He chokes, and then water is thrown out of his nostrils along with the air.
Among mammals, a number of species have adapted to life in water. Seals and walruses, fur seals, sea otters, or sea otters, as they are also called, and some other animals spend most of their lives in water. But they give birth to and raise their young on land or at least on ice.
All cetaceans do not leave the water: they cannot live on land. Their young are born in water. Obviously, such a calf should be able to swim from the very first hour of its life.
Baby whales will be born very large. A twenty-meter female blue whale will give birth to a baby whale seven to eight meters long.
For the first 15 to 20 minutes, a newly born whale stands in the water like a float. During this time, its fins straighten, and then it begins to swim.
The whale does not swim far. All he needs now is his mother's nipple. He finds it and starts eating. He doesn't have to make any special effort to get pumped. With its tongue rolled into a tube, it tightly covers the nipple. And the mother injects milk into the baby’s mouth, working the muscles that compress the mammary gland.
The daily portion of a blue whale is 200 - 300 liters of milk. Yes what! Whale milk contains 45-50 percent fat, which is 12-15 times fatter than cow's milk.
The baby of large whales feeds on milk for six to seven months. During this time, it approximately doubles in size. A six-month-old blue whale reaches a length of 16 - 17 meters. He's a huge guy, and he's only six months old!
Whales grow very quickly. Already a two or three year old whale has offspring.
It would seem that giant whales should live a very long time. This is what they used to think, believing that whales live for hundreds of years; Will such a giant soon grow up? No one knew then that whales grow at an amazing rate.
No, whales don't live long. 20 - 30 - 40 years - this is the life expectancy of these giants. So, at least, a study of the age of the caught whales showed.
Whale hunting shortens the lives of these animals. The average age of harvested whales is six years. These are young whales. Man does not allow whales to live to old age, he kills them earlier.
If less whales were hunted, large breeds would live to be 50 years old. They probably would have lived 60, 80 years, and maybe even longer.
More than 80 species of cetaceans live in the seas and oceans. They are divided into two groups: baleen whales and toothed whales.
The mouth of a baleen whale is of monstrous size. The bowhead whale's mouth can easily fit a boat with four oarsmen. You can put a four-meter pole there, and it won’t bend when the whale closes its mouth.
Baleen whales have no teeth. They appear in the fetal whale, but quickly disappear, and the whale is born toothless. Embryonic teeth show that the distant ancestors of the baleen whale had teeth.
Horny plates hang down from the upper jaw: three to four hundred on each side. Their length varies among different breeds of whales. In the large-mouthed bowhead whale they are four and a half meters long, in other breeds they are shorter, often about a meter. These plates are whale plates mustache.
The baleen whale's mouth is huge, but its throat is narrow, and it cannot swallow large prey. Small crustaceans and small mollusks, swimming in millions in the upper layers of water, are the main food of baleen whales. Some of them catch small fish, and the South African minke whale even catches seabirds - penguins.
The Bible tells us that a certain Jonah was swallowed up by a whale. Jonah allegedly lived in his stomach for three days, and then was thrown out alive and unharmed by a whale. The writer of this story did not know whales. A baleen whale cannot swallow an adult: even a teenager will get stuck in its throat. A toothed whale has a wider throat that an adult can fit through, but... a toothed whale has teeth. Once you get into the toothy mouth, you won’t remain whole.
The baleen whale feeds by filtering water with crustaceans and other small food swimming in it. Having collected water into its open mouth, it closes its mouth and releases the water out through a fence made of whalebone. Food stays in the mouth.
Toothed whales don't have baleen, they have teeth. These teeth are unsuitable for chewing: they are conical and sharp. With such teeth you can hold prey and tear it apart, but you cannot chew with them. Toothed whales also attack large prey: their throats are wide.
Both baleen and toothed whales do not chew their food. It is crushed in their stomach. The whale's stomach consists of three sections. The first section is muscular. It has no digestive glands, its walls are keratinized. This is where food is ground. The gizzard is the whale's chewing apparatus.
Baleen whales include the largest of the whales - the blue whale. These also include the small whale - the minke whale. It weighs ten tons and is ten meters long. Whalers almost never hunt this whale. It swims very quickly, and hunting for it is difficult and the prey is small.
The largest of the toothed whales is the sperm whale. You can immediately recognize him by his head. Huge cylindrical head, very small lower jaw. Like a bucket placed on a plank. Sperm whales can be up to 20 meters long and weigh up to 100 tons. This big-headed whale is one of the true giants of the seas.
The main food of sperm whales is squid, ten-armed relatives of octopuses. Even the remains of giant squids - fifteen-meter monsters - were found in the stomachs of sperm whales.
The sperm whale does not have a baleen: after all, it is a toothed whale, not a baleen whale. It has no more blubber than other whales. But he has something different that other whales do not have.
Spermaceti and ambergris are two strange words associated with the sperm whale.
Spermaceti is a fatty substance similar to wax, but very fragile. It is used to make ointments and various creams.
Ambergris - painful discharge from the gallbladder. Gray, brown or almost black, it looks like wax. Ambergris is valued for its remarkable property: it perfectly retains odors. Perfumes containing ambergris do not wear out for a long time.
The sperm whale has only a lower jaw. A killer whale has two dozen teeth in each jaw. It is not for nothing that this predator is called the killer whale. Strong and agile, it attacks not only seals and dolphins. The killer whale is not afraid of the walrus; a pod of hungry killer whales even attacks baleen whales. The ten-meter predator is a thunderstorm of the ocean.
The one and a half meter long dorsal fin of the male killer whale is visible from a distance above the wave. You can see it in all oceans.
Man has been hunting whales for a long time. Whale has a lot of fat. A large blue whale can have up to 50 tons of it. Such whales are rare. On average, a harvested whale produces about ten tons of fat. In addition to fat, it produces meat and whalebone.
Thousands of whales were caught every year by whalers who beat the sea giants from their boats with simple harpoons. You can’t catch every whale in a boat in order to hit it with a harpoon. For blue whales, such boats were not scary.
In the middle of the 19th century, the harpoon cannon was invented. She shoots the whale with a harpoon with a grenade on the end. Not a single whale will escape from such a harpoon: you just need to approach it for a cannon shot.
Previously, a whaler delivered a dead whale to the shore, and there it was cut up and the fat was rendered. Now the whale is usually delivered to a whaling ship, a ship on which it is butchered, and tankers and cargo ships pick up the whale oil and other products.
Our whaling mother "Slava" travels every year with the whaling fleet to Antarctica. It delivers thousands of tons of whale oil from there. Our other queen - "Aleut" - works in the Far Eastern seas.
Whales do not stay in one place all year. They move long distances in search of food. At different times of the year, there is more food, either closer to the poles or closer to the equator. Knowing about the movements of whales, whaling ships hunt where there are a lot of whales at that time.
Sailing ships with simple harpoons killed many whales. A steamship with a cannon accelerated the extermination. Industrialists in capitalist countries are predatorily exterminating whales. Some species of whales are living their last days.
Once upon a time, whales were found in all seas. Now there are many of them only in the seas of the southern hemisphere. Up to 50 thousand whales are killed every year, of which 40 thousand are caught in Antarctica. There are fewer and fewer whales in the northern seas.
Soviet whalers take care of whales. The so-called gray whale is becoming rare. In summer it feeds in our Far Eastern seas. And here it is carefully guarded. In the Soviet country, natural resources are not stolen. By using these riches wisely, we not only preserve them, but also increase them. We also protect the giant whales in our seas.
Whales are amazing animals. These are the largest creatures on the planet and, despite their gigantic size, one of the most harmless. Cases of their attacks on people are extremely rare; this mainly happens when a ship accidentally floats on an animal. We have collected the most interesting information about these creatures!
Whales can stay awake for months
If necessary, whales can easily go without sleep for three months. Well, they sleep almost on the surface of the water. The body of a whale has a high content of light adipose tissue, so the weight of the animal slightly exceeds the specific gravity of water. So the sleeping whale slowly sinks to the depths, and after a while hits its tail in its sleep, after which it rises to the surface again. Here, after inhaling air, the animal again begins to slowly descend deeper. Until the next tail swipe.
The whale is the largest animal on the planet
The largest whales are blue ones. And they are probably the largest creatures that have ever inhabited the planet.
On average, the length of a whale is from 22 to 27 meters, females are always larger than males. The largest known whale was caught in 1926; it reached a length of 33 meters, and the weight of the animal was 150 tons. Some scientists believe that whales used to be even larger; they simply became smaller due to whaling. So, there is some evidence that among blue whales there were real giants up to 37 meters.
The weight of a whale's heart alone is 600-700 kg, and its vessels are about the diameter of a bucket. About 8 thousand liters of blood flow through these arteries.
What sounds do whales make?
No other living creature on our planet can produce a sound as loud as a whale. The call of one of the representatives at low frequencies can be heard by whales at a distance of more than 16 thousand kilometers.
How do whales hear?
Whales do not have external ears, but listen through their throats. And to be more precise, the lower jaw. From it, sound penetrates to the middle and inner throat.
Whales also have very poor eyesight and no sense of smell, so hearing is the only way to navigate the ocean and get food. Therefore, ships and other external noise caused by humans cause enormous inconvenience to whales.
How much does a whale eat?
Whales consume an incredible amount of calories: they eat about three tons of food per day. The main “dishes” are small crustaceans and algae, sometimes small fish and squid. True, they eat only in the summer, and for about 8 months a year they eat practically nothing; they survive due to accumulated fat. And, as a result, in the summer, whales simply eat all day long, devouring everything in their path.
Whale tails are like fingerprints
Whales do not have fingers, but these animals have tails instead. The fact is that each whale has its own unique tail with a unique pattern, and this uniqueness is formed by furrows, brown algae stains and scars.
The closest relatives of whales are hippos
The hypothesis states that the ancestors of whales lived on land and walked on four legs. However, during the course of evolution, they descended into the ocean in search of food. At first they simply hunted fish in the water and went ashore to rest, but due to competition with other animals, the ancestors of whales had to go further and further. So they remained to live in the ocean. This happened about 50 million years ago.
All cetaceans (including dolphins) are descendants of artiodactyls. Well, the closest relative of the whale is the hippopotamus. They descended from a single ancestor who lived on the planet 54 million years ago.
How whales breathe
Whales can go without oxygen for up to two hours, but the animal typically inhales between one and four times per minute. Their respiratory tract is designed in such a way that inhalation and exhalation occur very quickly: for example, a blue whale inhales 2000 liters of air per second. When animals are in the water, the blowhole closes with a valve.
What kind of milk do whales have?
Everyone knows that whales are mammals and feed their young with breast milk. For a long time, scientists only speculated how this could happen, but a couple of years ago, environmentalists managed to film a baby feeding. Whale mother's milk is very thick and has a consistency similar to toothpaste. It is rich in protein and the fat content is 50%. The cub receives about 90 liters of milk from the mother per day; on average, feeding lasts 7 months. So how does this happen?
The fact is that females have nipples covered with a layer of skin, thanks to which they easily glide through the water. Babies do not have flexible lips with which they can wrap around the nipple, like ordinary mammals. Therefore, feeding occurs as follows: the baby swims up to the mother, dives under her, and at the moment of this contact the mother bends her abdominal muscles and exposes her nipple, splashing milk into the baby’s mouth. Then the baby swims away from the mother, and then returns again, the process repeats. Amazing coherence and interaction!
At birth, the cub reaches approximately 9 meters in length, and by the age of one and a half years it grows to 20 meters and gains weight up to 45-50 tons.
Blue whales are monogamous
Whales are very social animals, they communicate with each other. It is reliably known that blue whales are monogamous animals, they form a married couple for a long time, and the male does not leave the female under any circumstances, they always stay close to each other.
People believed that you could live in the stomach of a whale
There used to be many legends that people could survive in the stomach of a whale. So, there is biblical confirmation of this: the prophet Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of a whale. And also remember the fairy tale about Pinocchio and the famous Disney cartoon, where the woodworker Geppetto was swallowed by a whale.
People believed that after a shipwreck, if sailors were swallowed by a whale, they could live in its stomach for months. What a journey!
However, what is it really? A person simply cannot penetrate through the throat: it is the size of a small plate. But there are whales that can swallow a person whole, these are sperm whales. But their stomach has very high acidity, so it is impossible to survive there.
Whales can talk
And not only among themselves. Whales are capable of imitating human speech. For a long time they did not believe in this, but scientists conducted an experiment on the beluga. The mammal was trained to make sounds on command and sensors were attached to it. It turned out that the beluga “talks” in the following way: it sharply increases the pressure in the nasal cavities and thereby causes the phonic lips (formations in the nasopharynx, with the help of which cetaceans make sounds) to vibrate.
Whales are very peculiar mammals, which, due to their constant life in water, are more like fish. This group of animals has a characteristic appearance and at the same time has achieved significant diversity. Whales form a separate order of Cetaceans, but this term is a collective one. Usually this word refers to large species; small cetaceans have other names (dolphins, porpoises).
Humpback whale, or humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).
The most striking distinguishing feature of these animals is their size. Indeed, all species of whales are simply giants of the animal world. Even the smallest species (dwarf sperm whales, for example) reach a length of 2-3 m and a weight of 400 kg, and most species have a length of 5-12 m and a weight of several tons. The largest species, the blue whale, reaches a length of 33 m and weighs 150 tons! It is several times larger than even the largest dinosaurs. The blue whale is the largest living creature ever to inhabit our planet!
All species of whales are characterized by an elongated, streamlined body, a very short, inactive neck and a large head. The size of the head can vary greatly between species: in small whales it is 1/5 of the body length, in large baleen whales its size can reach 1/4, and in the sperm whale the head makes up 1/3 of the body. Based on the structure of their teeth, whales are divided into two suborders: baleen and toothed. Baleen whales have no teeth at all; they are replaced by giant horny plates that hang in the mouth like a fringe. They are called whalebone.
Baleen in the mouth of a whale.
Toothed whales have teeth, their shape and size vary between species. The structure of the jaws can also be different: in baleen whales the lower jaw is much larger than the upper and is similar to a ladle; in toothed whales, on the contrary, the upper jaw is larger or equal in size to the lower one. Such differences are associated with the nature of the diet of these animals.
The difference in size of the upper and lower jaws is clearly visible on the head of a humpback whale.
The brain size of whales is relatively large, but this is primarily due to the development of the parts of the brain responsible for hearing. Whales, like dolphins, have perfect echolocation abilities; they emit sounds of various frequencies and use their reflection (echo) to navigate in space, find food and communicate with each other. Just like dolphins, whales are susceptible to an unknown pathology - they can periodically wash ashore. The animals do this unconsciously (the ability of whales to commit suicide is nothing more than a stupid prejudice), but with such persistence that scientists are still puzzling over the reason for such strange behavior. Animals washed ashore are not always old or sick; moreover, sometimes, through the efforts of rescuers, they can be returned to the sea. Most likely, the root cause of such death is disruptions in the operation of the echo sounder caused by numerous radio sources (all modern navigation uses powerful sources and repeaters of radio waves). Such electromagnetic “noise” in the ocean confuses the giants and they approach the shores; moreover, accustomed to trusting their feelings, the whales stubbornly strive in the “right” direction until they run aground. Other sense organs in whales are poorly developed: the sense of smell is in its infancy, and vision is also rather weak.
On the top of the head there is a breathing hole - a blowhole. In more primitive baleen whales it consists of two openings (“nostrils”), in toothed whales there is only one opening. Interestingly, during exhalation, moist air from the lungs creates a kind of fountain, and its shape depends on the type of whale.
A blowhole with two nostrils on the head of a gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus).
The limbs of whales are arranged in a very unusual way. The front ones have turned into flattened fins, and their size can vary greatly among different species. For example, the fins of belted teeth and sperm whales are small, and they reach their greatest development in the humpback whale.
The long fins of a humpback whale resemble wings underwater.
But whales have no hind limbs at all; in their place in the lumbar spine there are only two small bones to which the muscles of... the genital organs are attached. The driving force in the whale's body is created by a powerful twin tail, but these are not modified hind legs, as some believe.
The powerful tail is used by whales for movement and protection.
The coloration of whales is varied, but discreet. More often, their body has a dark upper side and a lighter lower side; some species (Bryde's minke) may have clearly visible stripes on the underside of the head. Species such as the blue whale, gray whale, and sperm whale are uniformly gray or brown in color.
The beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) gets its name from its rare white skin color.
Whales are widespread throughout all oceans (and some seas) of the globe. They are found only in deep waters; as a rule, they do not enter bays, river mouths and similar shallow waters. Whales usually move freely across the ocean, but their movement is not chaotic. Each whale species has favorite breeding grounds that they visit during certain seasons. The rest of the time, whales fatten up, but do this in areas remote from their breeding grounds. Thus, whales migrate with a cyclicity of 1 year. When feeding, whales swim at a speed of 10-20 km/h, but in case of danger they switch to a cruising speed of 50 km/h. Adult males and non-breeding females stay alone, females with cubs, as well as all animals during the breeding season form herds of 5-15 individuals. There is a peaceful atmosphere inside the herd: the whales have no internal hierarchy, they do not show aggression towards each other, in case of danger, all members of the herd try to defend themselves with common efforts, there are even cases of mutual assistance to wounded brothers. In general, whales, with their huge size and clumsiness, give the impression of stupid and uninteresting animals. But this is a false idea! These peculiar animals are endowed with developed intelligence and are not inferior to dolphins in intelligence. For example, there are cases when whales showed interest in the underwater photographers who were filming them - the animals approached people and even tried to play with them in their own way, pushing them to the surface. Another example: whalers tracked down a female whale with her calf and killed the latter. The whale carcass was transported to the cutting site in tow. All this time, the female swam nearby and tried to remove the corpse of the cub from the rope. Captive whales in captivity quickly get used to people and are able to perform tricks (to the best of their physical capabilities). Like all highly developed animals, whales love to play, while they jump high out of the water and beat their tails loudly.
Minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata).
Whales feed on a variety of marine animals, and there is a narrow specialization in the nutrition of different species. Baleen whales eat exclusively plankton - the smallest sea crustaceans. They extract it by filtering large volumes of water. To do this, the whale opens its mouth and takes water into its mouth...
Humpback whales use their open mouths as a scoop.
then with his tongue, like a piston, he pushes the water out of his mouth - the water flows freely through the whalebone, but the crustaceans remain.
A whale strains water with plankton.
Toothed whales feed on fish, which they also catch not individually, but in whole schools. Sperm whales specialize in catching deep-sea fish and shellfish (mainly squid). Many whales make long dives for hunting; they can stay under water for up to 1.5 hours. The record holders for diving depth are sperm whales, which were encountered at a depth of 1 km!
Whales are very infertile animals. Females reach sexual maturity at 7-15 years, males only at 15-25. Moreover, each individual participates in reproduction no more than once every 2 years. In the mating ritual of whales there is not only no aggression, but also any kind of struggle at all. Male whales attract the attention of females with their songs! Whale voices are surprisingly delicate for animals of their size. Each species of whale has its own set of sounds, but even individuals of the same species differ in the tone of their voice. The whale's song resembles a melodic moan and sounds very loud. According to divers, when a whale sings, the water around it vibrates. Female whales can mate with several males, since there is no struggle between representatives of the stronger sex, selection occurs in a very unusual way. It turns out that the gonads of whales are enormous (in the sperm whale, for example, up to 10-20% of body weight) and are capable of producing large amounts of sperm. Thus, among several males mating with one female, the one whose hormonal status is higher wins. Pregnancy in various species lasts 11-18 months. The female gives birth to only one calf, but it is large and developed. For example, the weight of a newborn blue whale is 2-3 tons. The calf is born tail first and, with the help of its mother, rises to the surface for its first breath. The mother often feeds the cub with very rich milk, due to which it grows quickly. The lactation period of whales is relatively short - 5-7 months. During this time, the cub manages to grow 2 times, then its growth slows down sharply. For another 1.5-2 years, the cub accompanies the mother, using her protection. In small and medium-sized whales, young animals are kept in herds until they reach sexual maturity, and sometimes later. Whales live 50-70 years.
Baby blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus).
It would seem that nothing could threaten such gigantic animals in this world. In reality, whales are very vulnerable to various dangers. In the ocean, whales have no enemies except... their own brothers. Killer whales (giant predatory dolphins often called whales) attack other species of cetaceans. Killer whales live in groups and act collectively, so even adult whales can hardly resist their coordinated attack, and the calves are completely defenseless. When attacked, whales try to escape by “flight”, swimming away from the herd of killer whales at high speed. If it was not possible to break away from the pursuit, the whale tries to fight off the attackers with strong blows of its tail, the mother swims under the calf from below, trying to cover it with her body.
But even in the absence of predators, whales have enough problems. Sometimes these animals experience... hunger. Massive fishing, global warming, and changing sea currents undermine the food supply of whales and animals can drift for several weeks in “barren” waters. Researchers have encountered extremely emaciated animals. In the Arctic Ocean, whales often become trapped in ice. Since whales breathe air, they are forced to surface regularly to replenish their supplies. If there are no suitable polynyas around, whales break through the ice with their heads, but they do not always succeed. When the ice is thick (or the opening is small), entire herds of whales suffocate under the ice.
Minke whale in Antarctic ice.
To top it all off, whales are actively hunted by people. Despite their impressive size (or rather, because of them), whales are attractive prey for fishing. There are no useless parts in a whale carcass; everything is used: fat (blub), meat, baleen, teeth, skin. Sperm whales are suppliers of very exotic products - spermaceti and ambergris. Spermaceti, despite its name, is not whale sperm at all, but a fat-like substance from the brain. Ambergris is found in the intestines and has a pleasant smell, which is why it got its name. Both substances are very valuable raw materials in the cosmetics industry and are extremely highly valued on the world market.
As a result of the impact of unfavorable factors, the number of almost all species of whales has greatly decreased, many species are on the verge of extinction. In this regard, the World Convention on the Prohibition of Whale Fishing was adopted (especially since whaling products have lost their relevance in our time). The only country that has not signed the convention is Japan. Japanese whalers still carry out mass fishing of all whales indiscriminately, justifying themselves by the fact that whale meat... is a traditional component of Japanese cuisine. On the other hand, tourism in whale breeding grounds has gained wide popularity. Nature lovers visit such places on small boats; queues line up to tour operators for the opportunity to watch whales live and hear their songs. Attempts to keep whales in captivity run into many obstacles: large species of whales cannot be kept due to their size, baleen whales cannot be fed with plankton, and catching an adult whale without killing it is very difficult. Repeated attempts to catch the cubs led to the death of the babies even at the transportation stage. Only the smallest species of whales (beluga whales, pilot whales) take root in aquariums, but they do not breed there. Perhaps the only way to preserve these unique animals is a widespread ban on their hunting and comprehensive protection of water resources.
The carcass of a beached blue whale is being cut up for further scientific research.