What Is It?
No one can argue that whales and dolphins are beautiful creatures, but if you look at
them closely, they seem to be made up of the strangest parts. Below are six close up
pictures of different whales. Can you tell what each picture represents?
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Look closely. This is a humpback whale’s eye! A humpback’s eye is located right in front of its flipper and is about the size of a softball. Unlike us, whales do not have stereoscopic vision. Because their eyes are so far apart, humpbacks have to stick their rostrums (snouts) straight up out of the water to be able to see with both eyes at the same time. This is called a spyhop. Only a few lucky people ever get a glimpse of a whale eye, for they rarely keep it open when the head is completely out of the water. |
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These strange looking lines are called pleats. Pleats are grooves that run from the tip of the lower jaw to the navel (about 2/3rds of the way down the body). When a whale swims through a school of fish, the pleats allow the mouth to expand, much like a pelican’s pouch. This enables the whale to take 500-1000 gallons of water into its mouth at one time, in hopes of catching 40-50 pounds of small fish. Not all whales have pleats. Those that do are called rorquals. Depending on the species of rorqual, the number of pleats can range from 15 to 95. |
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The white hairy looking matter is a portion of minke whale baleen. Baleen is what filter-feeding whales (like the minke, humpback, right and fin whale) have in their mouths instead of teeth. It is made of a protein-like substance called keratin, the same substance that makes up your fingernails and hair. Each whale has a series of baleen plates that are stacked side by side similar to the teeth of a comb, and hang vertically from the whale’s upper jaw. Depending upon the species of whale, the number of plates range from 500 to 800 and can range in length from a couple inches to over 10 feet. Each plate has a smooth edge that faces outwardly and a fringed edge that faces inwardly. Because of the close proximity between each plate, the fringed edge overlaps with the plate on either side to form a thick, hairy mat that is used as a very efficient filtering system. |
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These large bumps are called tubercles. Humpback whales are the only species that have them. Tubercles are sensory organs that allow a humpback to locate fish without necessarily relying on eyesight. Out of each bump protrudes a two- inch long hair that the whale uses in a way similar to a cat using its whiskers in the dark. The hairs will vibrate when a large school of fish swims past the whale, which cues the whale into the school’s location. |
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Believe it or not, you are looking down a humpback whale’s nostrils! The nostrils of a whale are called blowholes and are located on the top of the head, so that the whale can breathe easily when it is swimming at the surface of the water. Not all cetaceans have two blowholes. The odontocetes (toothed whales and dolphins) only have one. |
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These weird-looking creatures are called acorn barnacles. Acorn barnacles are a type of crustacean that will attach themselves to certain areas of a whale’s body. Over a ton of barnacles can sometimes be found on a whale’s body, congregating underneath the chin, genital area and tail. |
