Learning About Whales

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Learning About Whales
Prepared by Carm Esser
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Facts

• Whales are warm blooded mammals.
• Whales breathe with lungs.
• Whales have blubber.
• A mother whale has one live calf and nurses her
  baby with milk.
• The whale has a highly developed brain.
• Whales belong to a group of animals known as
  cetaceans.

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Facts

• Whales use their flippers for balance and
  turning.
• Whales use their tails called flukes for
  swimming.
• Whales move through the water by moving their
  flukes up and down.
• Whales cant stay underwater.
• Whales have to come up for air.

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Facts

• When whales reach the surface, they blow air out
  their blowholes.
• Whales cannot smell and most cannot taste.
• Whales have poor eyesight.
• They have a well developed sense of touch and
  hearing.
• They use echolocation.

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Facts

• There are two subgroups of whales
• . Baleen whales
• They have no teeth but have hundreds of tiny
  plates called baleen (the same material as
  fingernails).
• The baleen strains out food from the water.
• They feed on plankton.

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Facts

• There are ten kinds of baleen whales.
• They are generally larger in size.
• They have two blowholes.

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Facts

• .Toothed whales
• They have teeth.
• There are 65 kinds of toothed whales.
• The whales differ in size, shape, and in the
  number of teeth they have.
• They actively hunt their food.
• They have one blowhole.

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Kinds of Whales

• Beluga
• They are toothed whales.
• They are white as adults.
• They grow to be about 15 feet and weigh up to
  3,300 pounds.
• They have 34 teeth.
• The teeth are not designed for chewing, but for
  grabbing and tearing prey.
• They swallow their prey whole.
• They are carnivores.

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Kinds of Whales

• Beluga

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Kinds of Whales

• Narwhal
• They live in icy Arctic waters.
• They have 2 teeth.
• The males left tooth develops into a spiral tusk
  that can be up to 9 feet long.
• No one really knows how the tusk is used.
• They feed mainly on fish and squid.
• They are gray with white underneath and with dark
  spots on the entire body.

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Kinds of Whales

• Narwhal

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Kinds of Whales

• Orca
• They are the largest types of dolphin.
• They are black and white in color.
• They can be up to 30 feet long.
• They have huge teeth that they use to capture and
  eat fish and marine animals.
• They live in all the oceans.
• They make loud noises underwater.

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Kinds of Whales

• Orca

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Kinds of Whales

• Humpback Whale
• They are baleen whales.
• They are found in all oceans.
• They migrate.
• They are slow swimmers.
• They like to feed close to shore.
• They are black on top and white underneath.

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Kinds of Whales

• They can grow to be 50 feet.
• They can throw themselves out of the water, turn
  somersaults in mid air and underwater, and swim
  on their backs with both flippers in the air.
• They are the most vocal of whales.
• Their songs have been recorded by scientists.

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Kinds of Whales

• Humpback Whale

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Kinds of Whales

• Sperm Whale
• They are the largest toothed whale.
• They are blue gray in color.
• They can grow to be 60 feet long.
• They have enormous square shaped heads.
• They are the deepest diving of all whales.
• They can stay underwater for an hour.

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Kinds of Whales

• They dive deeply to catch giant squid.
• They also feed on small squid, fish, octopus, and
  sharks.
• They are found in all oceans.
• Only the male migrates the female stays in
  warmer waters.
• They have the largest brain of any living
  creature.

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Kinds of Whales

• Sperm Whale

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Kinds of Whales

• Blue Whale
• They are the largest living animal on Earth.
• They swim in oceans all over the world.
• They are bluish gray.
• They can grow to be 100 feet long.
• They have baleen that acts as a strainer for
  small living plants and animals.
• They are fast swimmers and can outswim boats.

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Kinds of Whales

• Blue Whale

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Whale Behaviors

• Toothed whales swim in herds of 100-1000 baleen
  whales swim in family groups.
• Whales communicate with one another by making
  sounds called phonations.
• Baleen whales migrate toothed whales dont
  migrate.
• Whales can live 15-40 years.

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Whale Behaviors

• Breaching
• leaping out of the water headfirst and then
  falling back with a splash

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Whale Behaviors

• Lobtailing
• slapping its flukes on the waters surface.

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Whale Behaviors

• Sailing
• raising the flukes high in the air and letting
  the wind push them

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Whale Behaviors

• Spyhopping
• raising the head out of the water, body in a
  vertical position, as though to look around.

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Whale Behaviors

• Logging
• when a group of whales rests on the waters
  surface, all facing the same direction.

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Whale Behaviors

• Blow/spout
• the spray of mist that forms when a whale
  surfaces and exhales. Some spouts shoot 25 feet
  into the air. After the whale spouts, it
  breathes in fresh air.

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Did You Know?

• Human hunters are the whales worst enemy.