Whale Anatomy

Anatomy of the sperm whales head. They breathe air through blowholes.

Annals Of The Durban Museum Natural History Zoology

The plates are made out of fingernail like material called keratin.

Whale anatomy. Their bodies are designed though to make living in the water easy for them. The largest creature ever to have lived with a tongue alone that can weigh as much as an elephant the blue whale rules the ocean. It makes the baleen strong but still flexible.

On the throat the gray whale has two to seven grooves of excess skin. Yet we will all agree that it is on a much larger scale. Atop the whales skull is positioned a large complex of organs filled with a liquid mixture of fats and waxes called spermaceti.

General anatomy whales are marine mammals. Baleen whales are the other suborder of the toothed whale species. They can move around without exerting large amounts of energy.

There are two types of whales toothed whales odontoceti and baleen whales mysticeti. The overall structure of a whale is very similar to that of fish. Baleen whales mysticeti toothed whales are predators that use their teeth to catch their prey baleen whales have a sieve like structure called baleen that catches huge amounts of tiny krill anatomy of baleen whales.

The organs above the jaw are devoted to sound generation. Whale skulls have small eye orbits long snouts with the exception of monodontids and ziphiids and eyes placed on the sides of its head. Baleen whales dont have teeth instead they have 130 to 180 baleen plates that hang down each side of their upper jaws like a fringy curtain.

The whale species are well known for their enormous size even though some of them are substantially larger than others. Whales range in size from the 26 metre 85 ft and 135 kilogram 298 lb dwarf sperm whale to the 34 metre 112 ft and 190 metric ton 210 short ton blue whale. Whales porpoises and dolphins are marine mammals and like all mammals they require oxygen.

The anatomy of a whale is designed to allow it to easily move through the water. There are two primary whale suborders that are divided based on their physical. All whales are mammals and so that automatically tells us that they need to breath in air to fill their lungs.

Whale anatomy physical characteristics. Steve connor explains how this magnificent mammal evolved to such mammoth proportions the blue whale is the largest known animal to have ever lived far bigger than any of the dinosaurs.

Whale Anatomy