Whale Home Page

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This Web project was developed as part of "Internet Resources" courses offered by the Biology and Geology departments of the California State University, Los Angeles in 1995 and 1996. It was submitted to the instructors for evaluation and then placed on-line by the Electronic Desktop Project (EDP). EDP does not update or maintain any of the material of this project, and does not vouch for validity or correctness. Furthermore, the student developing this project was instructed about the rules of copyrights. EDP can in no way be responsible for the inclusion of copyrighted material within this project.

The largest and most powerful animal on

are whale. Although they spend their lives in the sea, whales are not Fish. They are warm-blooded mammals. The young whale is born alive and fed by its mother's milk, like the young of land mammals.

The general form of whales is torpedo-shaped, and thier bodies are smooth and streamlined.

The hind limbs are represented only by a few bony vestiges.

A dorsal fin is usually present, and the tail fin consists of a pair of horizontal flukes.

The primary thrust in locomotion is derived from up-and-down movements or the tail and flukes.

Virtually all species of cetaceans are known to produce sounds, and these sounds may serve as an important means of interaction and communication. There are two basic types of underwater sounds:

Whistles

Cry

The brief clicks of high intensity sound, some about 13 times the upper audible frequency of humans, are used to navigate or to identify food sources

This order of aquatic mammals is divided into three suborders: the Mysticeti, the BALEEN WHALES; the odontoceti, the TOOTHED WHALE; and the Archaeoceti, and extinct group known only throhgh fossils.

Baleen Whales

Finback Whale, Minke Whale, Humpback Whale, Right Whale

Gray Whale

Toothed Whales: Pilot Whale, Bottlenose Dolphin. Killer Whale, Sperm Whale, Narwhal

Crustaceans

copepods,

krills

The toothed whale are all predators, feeding actively on fish and Squid.

Whales can be found in all oceans and seas of the world and at any latitude. Gray whales follow migration paths along the Pacific coasts of Asia and North America, some of them undertaking the longest round-trip of any mammal, up to 22,000 km. Migratory paths of many species have been well tracked by whaler, and the animals evidently follow ocean currents, planktonic movements, temperature gradients, and other environment and climatic factor.

Life spans for cetacean species are estimated from about 30 years in the smaller Odontocetes to perhaps 90 or even 100 years for the large baleen whales.

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