Latest Rorqual Stories
Animal-borne, multisensor tags attached to filter-feeding whales are revealing the fine points of how these giants of the ocean catch their prey Marine biologists are beginning to understand the varied diving and foraging strategies of filter-feeding whales by analyzing data from multisensor tags attached to the animals with suction cups. Such tags, in combination with other techniques such as echolocation, are providing a wealth of fine detail about how the world's largest creatures find...
Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Sure, a whale can lunge underwater, but have you ever seen one do a jumping jack? Ok, so those aren’t the lunges a group of researchers were monitoring. Representing institutions from around the globe, Malene Simon, Mark Johnson, Peter Madsen and colleagues built on the previous success of another research team. In the first study, Jeremy Goldbogen and his team were able to tag blue, fin and humpback whales revealing that they...
Scientists with the Smithsonian Institution and the University of British Columbia (UBC) have discovered a new sensory organ in the rorqual family of whales -- a discovery which sheds new light on their unique feeding behavior and explains why they grow to such massive sizes. The US and Canadian biologists involved in the study located the organ at the tip of the chin of blue, humpback, minke and fin whales, contained within a batch of ligaments connecting the lower jaw bones, according to...
In 2006, a team of Spanish and American researchers found the fossil remains of a whale, 4.5 million years old, in Bonares, Huelva. Now they have published, for the first time, the results of the decay and fossilization process that started with the death of the young cetacean, possibly a baleen whale from the Mysticeti group.This is not the first discovery of the partial fossil remains of a whale from the Lower Pliocene (five million years ago) in the Huelva Sands sedimentary formation, but...
Experts say a minke whale that was likely injured by floating rope has provided a unique insight into the dangers posed to marine animals by fishing gear, BBC News reported.The large whale was spotted off the coast of Quebec, Canada, with a huge scar around its throat and feeding in a way never before recorded for minke whales, probably in response to its injury.It is one of the first sightings to detail the handicaps that can be caused to animals that become entangled in fishing nets and...
As most American families sat down to Thanksgiving dinner, a University of British Columbia researcher revealed how one of the largest animals on earth feasts on the smallest of prey "“ and at what cost.Some large marine mammals are known for their extraordinarily long dive times. Elephant seals, for example, can stay underwater for an hour at a time by lowering their heartbeat and storing large amounts of oxygen in their muscles."Weighing up to 40 tons, humpback whales and their close...
Latest Rorqual Reference Libraries
The Minke Whale or Lesser Rorqual is a marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales. The Minke Whale was first identified by Lacepede in 1804. Taxonomy Most modern classifications split the Minke Whale into two species; the Common or Northern Minke Whale and the Antarctic or Southern Minke Whale. Taxonomists further categorize the Common Minke Whale into two or three subspecies; the North Atlantic Minke Whale, the North Pacific Minke Whale and Dwarf Minke Whale. All Minke...
The Sei Whale (Balaenoptera borealis) is a large baleen whale. Following large-scale hunting of Sei Whales in the Southern Ocean during middle part of the twentieth century when approximately 200,000 Sei Whales were killed, the Sei Whale is now an internationally protected species. The Sei Whale can grow to 20 m (66 ft) long. Taxonomy and naming This rorqual (The largest group of baleen whales) is in the order Cetacea. Like all the biggest whales it has baleen plates rather than teeth....
The Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal that is in the suborder of baleen whales. At up to 30 meters (100 feet) in length and 140 tons or more in weight, it is believed to be the largest animal ever to have lived on Earth. Blue Whales were abundant in most oceans around the world until the beginning of the twentieth century. For the first 40 years of the twentieth century they were hunted by whalers almost to extinction. Hunting of the blue whale was outlawed by the...
Bryde's Whales are the least known and in many ways the most unusual of the rorquals(Baleen Whales). They are small by rorqual standards"”no more than about 25 tons. They prefer tropical warm waters to the polar seas that other whales in their family prefer. They are largely coastal whales and their diet is composed almost entirely of fish. There appear to be two species, and some confusion between the two exists. Bryde's Whales are very similar in appearance to Sei Whales and almost as...
The Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus), also called the Finback Whale and belongs to the baleen whales suborder. It is the second largest whale and also the second largest animal currently living. The Fin whale can grow to 85 ft (26 m) long. The fin Whale can be found worldwide and in Europe is readily seen in the Bay of Biscay. Taxonomy The Fin Whale is a close relative of the Blue Whale. The differences began to occur between 3 and 5 million years ago. Hybrids between the two...
