Keith is sea ​​monster. In the truest sense of the word. After all, this is how the Greek word is translated, from which the name of this amazing animal came - κῆτος. A lot can be said about marine life belonging to the order of cetaceans. But it is worth dwelling on the most interesting facts.

Name

The first step is to answer the question that worries many. And it sounds like this: “Is the whale a fish or a mammal?” The second option is correct.

The whale is big marine mammal, which has nothing to do with porpoises or dolphins. Although they are included in the order Cetacea (cetaceans). In general, with the names it turns out a very interesting situation. Pilot whales and killer whales, for example, are considered whales. Although in accordance with the strict official classification, they are dolphins, which few people know about.

And it is better to trust a strict classification, since whales in the old days were called leviathans - many-headed sea monsters that could swallow the planet. In a word, an entertaining story behind the name.

Origin

Well, above was the answer to the question "Is a whale a fish or a mammal?" Now we can talk about the types of these creatures.

To begin with, it is worth noting that all whales are descendants of land mammals. And those who belonged to the artiodactyl groups! This is not fiction, but a scientifically proven fact, which was established after molecular genetic examinations. There is even a monophyletic group (clade) that combines whales, hippos and all artiodactyls. All of them are whale-toed ungulates. According to research, whales and hippos descended from the same creature that lived on our planet about 54 million years ago.

Detachments

So, now - about the types of whales. Or rather, about suborders. The first kind - baleen whales. They are the largest of modern mammals. Their physiological feature are whiskers with a filter-like structure.

The second species is toothed whales. Carnivorous, fast creatures. They are superior to toothless whales. Only the sperm whale can compare with them in size. And their feature, as you might have guessed, is the presence of teeth.

And the third species is ancient whales. The ones that no longer exist. They belong to the paraphyletic group of animals from which they later descended. modern views whales.

Anatomical features

Now it is worth considering the description of the whale from a physiological point of view. This animal is a mammal, and warm-blooded. Accordingly, each whale breathes with the help of lungs, and females feed their cubs with milk. And these creatures have hair, albeit reduced.

Since these mammals are exposed to the sun, their skin is protected from ultraviolet rays. True, each species expresses it differently. Blue whale, for example, can increase the content in its skin of special pigments that absorb radiation (saying plain language, it "burns"). The sperm whale defends itself against oxygen radicals by triggering a "stress response". The fin whale practices both methods.

By the way, these creatures maintain their warm-bloodedness due to the presence of a thick fat layer under the skin. It is he who protects internal organs marine animals from hypothermia.

Oxygen uptake process

It is also interesting to talk about how whales breathe. These mammals can be under water for at least 2 minutes and a maximum of 40. However, there is also a record holder, and he is a sperm whale, which is able to stay under water for 1.5 hours.

The external nostrils of these creatures are located at the top of the head. They have special valves that reflexively close their airways when the whale dives into the water. At the moment of resurfacing, they open. It is important to know that the airway does not connect to the esophagus. So the whale absorbs air safely, without harm to itself. Even if there is water in his mouth. And by the way, speaking about how whales breathe, it is worth noting that they do it quickly. Shortened bronchi and trachea contribute to speed. By the way, their lungs are very powerful. In one breath, the whale renews the air by 90%. A person - only 15%.

It is worth noting that a column of condensed vapor comes out through the nostrils (also called a blowhole) at the moment of emerging. The same fountain, which is calling card whales. This is due to the fact that the whale exhales warm air from itself, which comes into contact with the outside (cold). So the fountain is the result of temperature exposure. The column of steam in different whales differs in height and shape. The most impressive "fountains" large mammals. They come out of their blowhole with such tremendous power that the process is accompanied by a loud trumpet sound. IN good weather it can be heard from the shore.

Food

A few words should be said about what whales eat. The diet of animals is varied. Toothed whales, for example, eat fish, cephalopods (squid, cuttlefish), and in some cases mammals.

Mustachioed representatives feed on plankton. They absorb a huge volume of crustaceans, filtering it from the water or with the help of a mustache. These animals can also eat small fish.

The most interesting thing is that whales almost do not eat in winter. And for this reason, in the summer they continuously absorb food. This approach helps them accumulate a thick layer of fat.

By the way, they need a lot of food. Large whales consume about three tons of food per day.

Bright representative

The blue whale deserves special attention. This is the largest animal that has ever existed on our planet. In length, it reaches 33 meters, and weighs about 150 tons.

By the way, the blue whale is a representative of the baleen suborder. Feeds on plankton. He has a well-developed filtering apparatus, due to which he filters the absorbed mass inside.

There are three subspecies of this animal. There is a dwarf, southern and northern whale. The last two live in cold circumpolar waters. Dwarf is found in tropical seas.

It is believed that blue whales live for about 110 years. In any case, so many were the most adult individuals encountered by people.

Unfortunately, the blue whale is not such a common marine life. In the 20th century, uncontrolled hunting was opened for these animals. By the middle of the last century, only 5 thousand individuals remained in the world. Humans have done a terrible deed, exterminating them. Emergency security measures were taken. On this moment the number of individuals has doubled, but blue whales are still at risk.

Beluga whale

This is a representative of toothed whales of the narwhal family. Beluga is not very big. Its mass reaches only 2 tons, and its length is 6 meters. Beluga whales have excellent hearing, acute perception of any sounds, as well as the ability to echolocation. In addition, these are social creatures - there are cases in which these whales saved a person. In aquariums, they get along well, eventually get used to people, and even become attached to workers.

Their diet is varied. Beluga whales eat cod, flounder, herring, clams, algae, shrimp, lamprey, rib jellyfish, pink salmon, gobies, blennies, crayfish and many others. marine life fit for food.

These creatures, like many others, also suffered because of human cruelty. The whalers easily drove them to the shallows, and the beluga whales literally broke. But at the moment this species is gradually recovering its numbers. Let's just hope people don't mess things up.

There are dozens of other representatives of cetaceans, and all of them are special and interesting in their own way. And I would like to hope that every species that we know will be preserved. sea ​​world should not lose any of them, because each of them is a real miracle and natural value.

Little children love to find out who is the biggest and who is the strongest in the world. Having learned about the animals themselves - elephants and whales - they often ask the question: "And if a whale and an elephant fight, then who will win whom?"
Of course, the elephant does not have to fight the whale. Firstly, both of them are distinguished by a fairly peaceful disposition, if they are angry. Secondly, whales do not come out onto land, and elephants do not swim in the sea, at least not far enough and long enough to meet whales. And thirdly, the size of an elephant is surprising only on land. At sea, it will not seem too big to anyone: its weight is only 4 tons!
Blue whale reaches enormous sizes. There are no larger animals on Earth, even the extinct dinosaurs were smaller - both in height and in weight. Adults are about 20 m long, but there are also real giants: 33 m is a record among vertebrates! Such a hulk weighs up to 160 tons, count how many elephants you need to collect in order to “drag” the blue whale? 40 elephants! And there are much more people: 2,300 people of average height and weight. The whale's tongue alone weighs as much as an adult elephant. So, if the sea and land giants had met, the whale would hardly have paid attention to the “baby” with a trunk. After all, even a newborn blue whale weighs about 2 tons with a height of 7 m!
What does such a huge animal eat? After all, only to move (and not so slowly - up to 30 km / h.!), This giant has to expend a lot of effort. And to maintain the life of the entire huge organism, too. And in sea water you need to constantly warm up, because the whale is not a fish, it has about the same body temperature as ours. Even in the tropics, the ocean is rarely warmer than 25°C, and more cold water constantly "sucks" heat from any beast. Whales do not want to "warm up" in any way. warm waters, they are often found precisely in cold seas, they swim at the very edge of the ice. This means that they need to eat even more, and this food should be satisfying. There are not so many algae in the ocean, and it is more convenient to “graze” near the bottom for those animals that shorter. Who are these giants hunting?
Their prey is so small that the details of its structure cannot be seen without a strong magnifying glass. The largest victims are little more than a cockroach, and the smallest are the size of a mosquito. These are small crustaceans that swim near the surface of the ocean, they are called by the Norwegian word "krill". Krill are one of the most important parts of the animal community that swim at the behest of ocean currents. This whole community is called plankton, many of its representatives can only be seen under a microscope. However, it is this floating trifle that serves as food for almost all the inhabitants of the seas: either they eat it, or those who feed on this plankton, and then someone will eat the “hunter”, and so on, until the predators are so large and strong that with no one can handle them.
The blue whale is not a predator, it does not catch up with anyone and does not bite, it does not even have teeth. Instead, meter-long plates hang from the upper jaw, similar to bone combs, but their “teeth” are small, they split into several hairs, so that all together they turn into a really thick brush. Like a mustache. Such a plate is called a “whalebone”, only it grows not outside, but inside, and the whale has several hundred of these whiskers - on both sides of the mouth. It turns out a thick, rather fine mesh, such as a sieve.
All whales communicate with each other using various sounds. The larger the whale, the louder and lower, "bass", his voice. At the same time, as scientists have found out, large whales are able to send signals to relatives located tens and even hundreds of kilometers away from them. Are the voices of sea giants so loud? It turns out not. It's all about properties sea ​​water. At a certain depth there are layers of water with different densities, through which sound travels much further, and they are used by cetaceans as a kind of underwater telephone. In a herd of whales, someone is constantly “on duty by the phone”: it dives to the desired depth and listens for messages from neighbors. With the help of such communication, for example, the news about the abundance of food in any place is quickly transmitted, and whales begin to gather in such an area from a rather large area of ​​the ocean. It is suggested that the “next one” transmits the message further, repeats it, as a result, the signal reaches very distant herds.
Whales with a "sieve" in their mouths are called baleen whales, as opposed to those with real teeth - toothed whales. All baleen whales have adapted to sifting the ocean in search of edible little things. It is enough for such a barbel to take water into his mouth, close his jaws and with his tongue, like a piston of a pump, squeeze the water through the mesh donated by nature. In this case, the crustaceans settle on the mustache, it remains only to swallow!
There is a lot of water in the whale's mouth, hundreds of liters, and even more food in the stomach. It takes about 1 ton of krill for a big blue whale to eat its fill! And crustaceans, as we remember, are tiny ... One circumstance saves whales: krill in the ocean are kept in huge clusters. For hundreds of meters, pinkish stripes sometimes stretch downstream - these are the bodies of many crustaceans that shine through the water. In other places, these clusters are not so clearly visible, not so dense, but they occupy vast spaces - tens of kilometers across! Such a living spot can feed not one whale, but a whole herd for several days. Having found accumulations of plankton, whales with open mouths swim 1 - 2 km. At the same time, the tongue directs the flow of water to the whiskers, and so many crustaceans can linger on the plates that the whale's mouth closes with difficulty. A few powerful sips - and the giant is full!
However, some baleen whales prefer larger prey, such as small fish. A relative of the blue whale (in some ways inferior to it in size - up to 27 m long), the fin whale was nicknamed the herring whale for hunting shoals of this fish. However, a few, and mackerel, are suitable for him, so that they swim in the ocean in dense herds and be not too large: the throat of a fin whale, like that of all baleen whales, is narrow. Another condition, without which the herring whale will not hunt: the school must stay near the surface of the sea, if it is deep, the hunt will not work, and you can not start.
Frightened fish swim quite quickly, whales will have to spend more energy chasing than will be added from such a quick breakfast. However, the prey is too attractive: in a large school you can even fill the belly of a whale with herring to the limit, so the fin whale had to learn how to drive the fish into a trap. Scientists even managed to film this strange method of fishing from a helicopter and, by the way, confirm the stories of former whalers, which the “land” inhabitants often do not believe.

Whales have no hands, building a trap from something in the middle of the ocean is a very difficult task, because the fin whale manages with what it has. By air. The fact is that the fish are very wary of any unusual noise, and they run in a panic from a continuous curtain of air bubbles. It is believed that the bubbling bubbles remind them of foam from the surf on the rocks, and the fish try to get away from the dangerous interference until they are thrown ashore or smashed against the rocks by a wave. Be that as it may, such a habit is only good for herring whales.
Having found a school, the fin whale dives under it, shallowly, by 20 - 30 meters. Then it starts to swim in a circle, gradually exhaling air. The circle narrows, forming a spiral wall of bubbles. Part of the jamb that has fallen inside this wall is thrown into the center of the spiral, and at that moment a huge mouth appears there. Having surfaced, the fin whale turns over on its side or on its back - it has caught too many fish, the mouth does not close in any way! We have to “help”: the jaw is heavy, and under its weight the fish is tightly “packed”.

Different representatives of the order of cetaceans have their own preferences and specializations in the diet. According to the types of main food, whales are divided into four groups:

  1. planktophages - animals mainly feeding on plankton (small crustaceans);
  2. teutophages - individuals of cetaceans, the basis of the diet of which is cephalopod molluscs different sizes;
  3. ichthyophages are whales that feed mainly on fish various kinds;
  4. sacrophages are representatives of the order of cetaceans, which are a kind of vegetarians, the basis of their diet is algae.

Individuals of the order of cetaceans consume food whole, without chewing, its daily requirement can reach a ton or more.

For different whales, the prey used for food can be both piece and mass. The pharynx of baleen whales is rather narrow, only plankton or small fish can pass through it, therefore these animals, the so-called "filterers", get food at the same time in significant quantities. To do this, a huge mammal wedges itself into a plankton colony - krill - and, opening its gigantic mouth, sucks in water along with crustaceans (plankton). With its very large tongue, having previously closed its mouth, the whale squeezes water through the whalebone. The water leaves, but the food remains. Such an operation, during the day, animals carry out repeatedly.


Krill is whale food.

Toothed whales, the so-called "grabbers", get food by grabbing prey one by one, and hold it with their teeth or suck it in using their tongue. The basis of the diet of toothed whales is cephalopods and different types fish. The sperm whale belonging to this group of whales has a pharynx of considerable size and could even swallow a person. This mammal, as a rule, obtains food at a considerable depth - more than one and a half kilometers - and squids form the basis of its diet. The only representatives of the order of cetaceans that constantly feed not only on cold-blooded, but also on warm-blooded animals, such as seals, birds and whales, are killer whales.

By the way, do you know

Cetaceans are the largest animals among all living on our planet: for example, adult blue whales have a body length of over twenty meters. The record holder among blue whales had this figure equal to thirty-three meters. The weight of an adult blue whale varies from ninety to one hundred and twenty tons.


Elephant, blue whale and other large whirlwinds.

In the waters of the icy Arctic seas, real sea unicorns are found - narwhals. However, the “horn” of the narwhal is not a horn at all, but the front left tooth, which in the process of evolution turned into a finely twisted tusk. Only male narwhals have such a “horn”.


See page:

The huge feeds on the smallest - so you can say about whales. Because whales eat plankton - a kind of living suspension of tiny organisms floating in the water column. But this is true only in relation to toothless, or baleen, whales. Toothed whales have completely different gastronomic preferences. The notorious killer whales have gained fame as ruthless killers, and the sperm whale is able to grapple with the inhabitant of the depths - a giant squid, defeat it and eat it.

Nursing the cubs

Whales are mammals. Females feed their cubs with thick and high-calorie milk, half consisting of fat and protein. The milk of cetaceans is cream-colored, similar in consistency to a paste, and does not spread in water.

The feeding process takes place under water. A newborn kitten must have time to eat and breathe at the same time. He captures the nipple for about 5-6 seconds, the female sends a trickle of milk into the mouth of the offspring by contraction of the muscles, he takes a sip and immediately floats up to inhale the air. "Gymnastics" continues throughout the entire period of milk feeding - this is how a small whale trains the skill of holding its breath. A baby blue whale drinks up to 200 liters of milk per day. Whales begin to feed on their own quite late - for example, the sperm whale remains a "baby" for 13 months.

Two types of food

All whales descended from a common ancestor - mesonychia. 50 million years ago is strange creature, similar to an ungulate wolf, lived along the sea coasts, hunted fish and small amphibians. In search of food, the mesonychia swam further and further, and less and less often went ashore, from where they were driven away by land predators.

Evolution quietly did its job - unnecessary hind limbs disappeared, cartilaginous blades grew on the tail, and the front paws turned into flippers. At some point, whales split into two branches - baleen (Mysticeti) and toothed (Odontoceti). Some began to graze peacefully in the ocean, filtering out plankton, while others turned into fearless and swift hunters.

baleen whales

Baleen whales are called "filterers" for a specific way of feeding that is not found in other warm-blooded whales. Instead of teeth, they have whalebone plates descending from the upper jaw and collected in a kind of "blinds" on the sides of the mouth. The edge of the plates, facing inward, is provided with a thick fringe. The tongue of baleen whales is well developed, mobile and adapted to pulling a mass of small prey into the throat. The head of the filter whale takes up to a third of the total length of its body, and the lower jaw is shaped like a bucket.

The feeding process is as follows: the whale is gaining a full mouth of water, along with the plankton in it. Having closed its jaws, the animal with its tongue, like a piston, squeezes the water out - through the frequent plates of the whalebone. The lips of the whale at this moment are not very tightly closed, and the water, cleared of plankton, goes back into the ocean. All solid inclusions settle on the fringe. The tongue makes a reverse movement and removes from the "filter" everything that has settled on it.

Baleen whale head in cross section

Although a certain amount of small fish, mollusks, jellyfish, algae and other marine life enters the whale's stomach along with plankton, their percentage is negligible compared to the mass of the main prey. That is, baleen whales are planktophages.

What does plankton look like?

Plankton (translated from Greek - “wandering”) is the collective name for all living things that soar between the water surface and the bottom. This is a community of small living creatures, ranging from diatoms to fairly large, up to 6 cm long, crustaceans. Plankton in the bulk is not capable of active movement and is carried by ocean currents.


Diversity of plankton

species composition plankton is heterogeneous - it depends on the time of year, latitude, water temperature and other factors. Phytoplankton, that is, the simplest algae, keeps in the uppermost layers of the water, closer to sunlight. However, whales are not attracted to algae, they are interested in more high-calorie food, namely zooplankton.

"Pastures" of whales

Zooplankton consists mainly of small crustaceans. Forms huge accumulations in the oceans. Whales are looking for them. And when they find it, they slowly move in the mass of plankton, regularly opening and closing their mouths, like a harvester during harvest.

Whales are herd animals. Having found a feeding place, the whale calls its relatives. His voice sounds with the power of an aircraft turbine and is heard for many hundreds of kilometers. But these cries of concern do not cause people, because they communicate sea ​​giants in the infrasonic range (below 50 Hz).

Baleen whales have a number of adaptations that allow them to capture as much food as possible. Minke whales (blue whale, fin whale, etc.) were especially successful in this. Under the lower jaw they have a leathery bag, usually assembled into long longitudinal folds. The volume of this bag can increase several times.


"Bucket" whale-minke. Visible whalebone on the upper jaw

Each species of whale has a filtering apparatus "tuned" to a catch of a certain size. Right whales (bowhead, southern, Japanese) feed on tiny, no more than 0.5 cm, crustaceans of the genus Calanus, so their filter is equipped with a thin and frequent fringe, intertwined in a dense network. Krill, the favorite food of minke whales, is order crustaceans euphausian, about the size of a finger. Accordingly, the fringe of minke whales is coarser and sparse.

The largest creature on the planet, the blue, or blue whale, feeds fat on krill. The length of this giant can reach more than 30 meters, and the weight can exceed 150 tons. The blue whale catches and sends about 50 kg of krill to its stomach in one go, and its daily ration is 6-8 tons.


Krill

Not a krill alone...

The seival, also known as the willow whale, is not content with plankton alone. Sei whales collectively attack shoals of sardine, pollock and other fish, confuse them with tail blows and swallow them. The same fate befalls flocks of small squids.

The humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) is the most versatile hunter of the minke whales. IN warm seas, where there is a lot of plankton, the hunchback feeds like an ordinary filterer. But in the northern waters, the diet of the humpback whale changes dramatically - it turns into an ichthyophage. Capelin, saury, herring and other schooling fish become its prey. A flock of humpbacks operates in a coordinated manner, using rather complex hunting techniques.

toothed whales

Unlike baleen whales, which swallow their prey in bulk, toothed whales grab their prey one by one. The sperm whale and the bottlenose feed on cephalopods. Small toothed whales mainly eat fish. Killer whales prey on warm-blooded - penguins, seals, their flocks attack large whales and tear them apart. In English, a killer whale is called a killer whale, that is, a killer whale.


Killer whale - a thunderstorm of seals

sperm whale prey

The most impressive representative of toothed whales is the sperm whale. A mature male reaches 20 meters in length and weighs 50 tons. The prey of the sperm whale to match the hunter is the giant squid of the genus Architeuthis, living at depths below 500 m.

Diving in search of food, the sperm whale is able to hold its breath for up to an hour and a half. The maximum proven depth of this whale is 2 km. sunlight does not penetrate such a thickness of water, so the sperm whale is looking for a prey using echolocation. Loud clicks emitted by him, jamming squid and disorienting them in space. But even stunned giant squid- a dangerous rival, especially for females and young whales.


Sperm whale and giant squid.
Diorama at the Museum of Natural History, USA

Although the fights of the sperm whale with the kraken take place far from human eyes, it is not difficult to guess that the whale almost always comes out victorious. In the stomachs of sperm whales, whole heaps of "beaks" (squid jaws) are found. The skin of an adult whale is dotted with circles - battle scars from cephalopod suckers.

Not finding squids nearby, the sperm whale preys on other bottom dwellers. Those who hid (octopuses, stingrays and others), the whale scares away, furrowing the silt with its lower jaw, which can open at a right angle. Nature has supplied the sperm whale with a cunning bait - the white skin around its mouth is inhabited by phosphorescent bacteria. Deep-sea creatures willingly swim into the light - and get directly to the dinner of the sperm whale.