Baleen whale
Baleen whales, also known as whalebone whales, are marine mammals of the parvorder Mysticeti in the infraorder Cetacea, which use baleen plates in their mouths to sieve plankton from the water. Mysticeti comprises the families Balaenidae, Balaenopteridae, Eschrichtiidae and Cetotheriidae. There are 16 species of baleen whales. While cetaceans were historically thought to have descended from mesonychians, molecular evidence instead supports them as a clade of even-toed ungulates. Baleen whales split from toothed whales around 34 million years ago.
Baleen whales range in size from the and pygmy right whale to the and blue whale, the largest known animal to have ever existed. They are sexually dimorphic. Baleen whales can have streamlined or large bodies, depending on the feeding behavior, and two limbs that are modified into flippers. The fin whale is the fastest baleen whale, recorded swimming at. Baleen whales use their baleen plates to filter out food from the water by either lunge-feeding or skim-feeding. Baleen whales have fused neck vertebrae, and are unable to turn their heads at all. Baleen whales have two blowholes. Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep warm in the cold water.
Although baleen whales are widespread, most species prefer the colder waters of the Arctic and Antarctic. Gray whales are specialized for feeding on bottom-dwelling crustaceans. Rorquals are specialized at lunge-feeding, and have a streamlined body to reduce drag while accelerating. Right whales skim-feed, meaning they use their enlarged head to effectively take in a large amount of water and sieve the slow-moving prey. Males typically mate with more than one female, although the degree of polygyny varies with the species. Male strategies for reproductive success vary between performing ritual displays or lek mating. Calves are typically born in the winter and spring months and females bear all the responsibility for raising them. Mothers fast for a relatively long period of time over the period of migration, which varies between species. Baleen whales produce a number of infrasonic vocalizations, notably the songs of the humpback whale.
The meat, blubber, baleen, and oil of baleen whales have traditionally been used by the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Once relentlessly hunted by commercial industries for these products, cetaceans are now protected by international law. These protections have allowed their numbers to recover. However, the North Atlantic right whale is ranked critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Besides hunting, baleen whales also face threats from marine pollution and ocean acidification. It has been speculated that man-made sonar results in strandings. They have rarely been kept in captivity, and this has only been attempted with juveniles or members of one of the smallest species.
Taxonomy
Baleen whales are cetaceans classified under the parvorder Mysticeti, and consist of four extant families: Balaenidae, Balaenopteridae, Eschrichtiidae and Cetotheriidae. Balaenids are distinguished by their enlarged head and thick blubber, while rorquals and gray whales generally have a flat head, long throat pleats, and are more streamlined than Balaenids. Rorquals also tend to be longer than the latter. Cetaceans and artiodactyls are now classified under the order Cetartiodactyla, often still referred to as Artiodactyla. The closest living relatives to baleen whales are toothed whales both from the infraorder Cetacea.Classification
Balaenidae consists of two genera: Eubalaena and Balaena. Balaenidae was thought to have consisted of only one genus until studies done through the early 2000s reported that bowhead whales and right whales are morphologically and phylogenically different. According to a study done by H. C. Rosenbaum and colleagues, the North Pacific and Southern right whales are more closely related to each other than to the North Atlantic right whale.Cetotheriidae consists of only one living member: the pygmy right whale. The first descriptions date back to the 1840s of bones and baleen plates resembling a smaller version of the right whale, and was named Balaena marginata. In 1864, it was moved into the genus Caperea after a skull of another specimen was discovered. Six years later, the pygmy right whale was classified under the family Neobalaenidae. Despite its name, the pygmy right whale is more genetically similar to rorquals and gray whales than to right whales. A study published in 2012, based on bone structure, moved the pygmy right whale from the family Neobalaenidae to the family Cetotheriidae, making it a living fossil; Neobalaenidae was demoted to subfamily level as Neobalaeninae.
Rorquals consist of three genera and 11 species: the fin whale, the Sei whale, Bryde's whale, Eden's whale, Rice's whale, the blue whale, the common minke whale, the Antarctic minke whale, Omura's whale, the humpback whale, and the gray whale. In a 2012 review of cetacean taxonomy, Alexandre Hassanin and colleagues suggested that, based on phylogenic criteria, there are four extant genera of rorquals. They recommend that the genus Balaenoptera be limited to the fin whale, have minke whales fall under the genus Pterobalaena, and have Rorqualus contain the Sei whale, Bryde's whale, Eden's whale, the blue whale, and Omura's whale. The gray whale was formerly classified in its own family. The two populations, one in the Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan and the other in eastern Pacific are thought to be genetically and physiologically dissimilar. However, there is some discussion as to whether the gray whale should be classified into its own family, or as a rorqual, with recent studies favoring the latter.
Etymology
The taxonomic name "Mysticeti" apparently derives from a translation error in early copies of Aristotle's Historia Animalium, in which "ὁ μῦς τὸ κῆτος" was mistakenly translated as "ὁ μυστικῆτος", which D. W. Rice in assumed was an ironic reference to the animals' great size. An alternate name for the parvorder is "Mystacoceti", which, although obviously more appropriate and occasionally used in the past, has been superseded by "Mysticeti".Mysticetes are also known as baleen whales for their baleen, which they use to sieve plankton and other small organisms from the water. The term "baleen" is an archaic word for "whale", which came from Old French baleine, derived from the Latin word balæna, derived itself from the Ancient Greek φάλλαινα .
Right whales got their name because of whalers preferring them over other species; they were essentially the "right whale" to catch.
Differences between families
Rorquals use throat pleats to expand their mouths, which allow them to feed more effectively. However, rorquals need to build up water pressure in order to expand their mouths, leading to a lunge-feeding behavior. Lunge-feeding is where a whale rams a bait ball at high speed. Rorquals generally have streamlined physiques to reduce drag in the water while doing this.Balaenids rely on their huge heads, as opposed to the rorquals' throat pleats, to feed effectively. This feeding behavior allows them to grow very big and bulky, without the necessity for a streamlined body. They have callosities, unlike other whales, with the exception of the bowhead whale. Rorquals have a higher proportion of muscle tissue and tend to be negatively buoyant, whereas right whales have a higher proportion of blubber and are positively buoyant. Gray whales are easily distinguished from the other rorquals by their sleet-gray color, dorsal ridges, and their gray-white scars left from parasites. As with the other rorquals, their throat pleats increase the capacity of their throats, allowing them to filter larger volumes of water at once. Gray whales are bottom-feeders, meaning they sift through sand to get their food. They usually turn on their sides, scoop up sediment into their mouths and filter out benthic creatures like amphipods, which leave noticeable marks on their heads. The pygmy right whale is easily confused with minke whales because of their similar characteristics, such as their small size, dark gray tops, light gray bottoms, and light eye patches.
Evolutionary history
Molecular phylogeny suggests Mysticeti split from Odontoceti between 26 and 17 million years ago but the earliest Mysticeti fossils date to at least 34 million years ago. Their evolutionary link to archaic toothed cetaceans remained unknown until the extinct Janjucetus hunderi was discovered in the early 1990s in Victoria, Australia. While, unlike a modern baleen whale, Janjucetus lacked baleen in its jaw, the anatomy shows sufficient similarity to baleen whales. It appears to have had very limited apparent biosonar capabilities. Its jaw contained teeth, with incisors and canines built for stabbing and molars and premolars built for tearing. These early mysticetes were exceedingly small compared to modern baleen whales, with species like Mammalodon measuring no greater than. It is thought that their size increased with their dependence on baleen. However, the discovery of a skull of the toothed Llanocetus, the second-oldest mysticete, yielded a total length of, indicating filter feeding was not a driving feature in mysticete evolution. The discovery of Janjucetus and others like it suggests that baleen evolution went through several transitional phases. Species like Mammalodon colliveri had little to no baleen, while later species like Aetiocetus weltoni had both baleen and teeth, suggesting they had limited filter feeding capabilities; later genera like Cetotherium had no teeth in their mouth, meaning they were fully dependent on baleen and could only filter feed. However, the 2018 discovery of the toothless Maiabalaena indicates some lineages evolved toothlessness before baleen.Mystacodon selenensis is the earliest mysticete, dating back to 37 to 33 million years ago in the Late Eocene, and, like other early toothed mysticetes, or "archaeomysticetes", M. selenensis had heterodont dentition used for suction feeding. Archaeomysticetes from the Oligocene are the Mammalodontidae from Australia. They were small with shortened rostra, and a primitive dental formula. In baleen whales, it is thought that enlarged mouths adapted for suction feeding evolved before specializations for bulk filter feeding. In the toothed Oligocene mammalodontid Janjucetus, the symphysis is short and the mouth enlarged, the rostrum is wide, and the edges of the maxillae are thin, indicating an adaptation for suction feeding. The aetiocetid Chonecetus still had teeth, but the presence of a groove on the interior side of each mandible indicates the symphysis was elastic, which would have enabled rotation of each mandible, an initial adaptation for bulk feeding like in modern mysticetes.
The first toothless ancestors of baleen whales appeared before the first radiation in the late Oligocene. Eomysticetus and others like it showed no evidence in the skull of echolocation abilities, suggesting they mainly relied on their eyesight for navigation. The eomysticetes had long, flat rostra that lacked teeth and had blowholes located halfway up the dorsal side of the snout. Though the palate is not well-preserved in these specimens, they are thought to have had baleen and been filter feeders. Miocene baleen whales were preyed upon by larger predators like killer sperm whales and megalodon.
The lineages of rorquals and right whales split almost 20 mya. It is unknown where this occurred, but it is generally believed that they, like their descendants, followed plankton migrations. These primitive baleen whales had lost their dentition in favor of baleen, and are believed to have lived on a specialized benthic, plankton, or copepod diet like modern baleen whales. Baleen whales experienced their first radiation in the mid-Miocene. It is thought this radiation was caused by global climate change and major tectonic activity when Antarctica and Australia separated from each other, creating the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Balaenopterids grew bigger during this time, with species like Balaenoptera sibbaldina perhaps rivaling the blue whale in terms of size, though other studies disagree that any baleen whale grew that large in the Miocene.
The increase in size is likely due to climate change which caused seasonally shifting accumulations of plankton in various parts of the world, necessitating travel over long distances, as well as the ability to feed on large baitballs to make such trips worthwhile. A 2017 analysis of body size based on data from the fossil record and modern baleen whales indicates that the evolution of gigantism in baleen whales occurred rather recently, within the last 3 million years. Before 4.5 million years ago, few baleen whales exceeded in length; the two largest Miocene species were less than in length. The initial evolution of baleen and filter feeding long preceded the evolution of gigantic body size, indicating the evolution of novel feeding mechanisms did not cause the evolution of gigantism. The formation of the Antarctic circumpolar current and its effects on global climate patterns is excluded as being causal for the same reason. Gigantism also was preceded by divergence of different mysticete lineages, meaning multiple lineages arrived at large size independently. It is possible the Plio-Pleistocene increase in seasonally intense upwellings, causing high-prey-density zones, led to gigantism.