ALL ABOUT WHALES

1.  Kingdom/type:  

 Whales belong to animal kingdom. They are vertebrates, mammals. Order cetaceans.

2.  Relationships:

Intraespecifics:

-Most of whales make temporary social groups called PODS to travel, migrate, hunt and protect the others.

-During mating season, males compete and fight for females. Normally a female mates with multiple males.

-The strongest relation is between whale mothers and their calves. Mothers feed with milk and care for their young at least a year.

Interespecifics:

-Whales haven't predators in the ocean so they live many years.

-The most dangerous predator of the whales is the human being. Whales are in dangerous of extinction because human hunt whales, ships hit the whales and kill them and for contamination.

-Whales are predators:  Baleen whales eat small fish and tiny crustaceans (krill).

                                      Thoothed whales hunt squids, big fish, marine mammals...

                                   

3. Characteristics:

-Whales look like fish but they are mammals. They are the biggest mammals in the world and they have adapted to live in the water.  
        Like mammals: 

Whales breathe air through blowholes (1 or 2). They have lungs.

Whales have hair.

Whales are warm-blooded. They maintain a hight body temperature with a thick layer of fat in their body and need to eat a lot of food.

-There are two groups of whales

Baleen whales: They have baleen plates for filtering food from water. These are the biggest.

Thoothed whales: They have teeth and they are smaller than the baleen whales.



THOOTHED WHALE                        BALEEN WHALE

-Whales live in all the oceans. The biggest whales live in the Arctic cold water  and usually migrate very long distances each year looking for food and warmer water.

-Whales have a very big dorsal fin to swim very fast: 40-50 km/hour.

4. Fun facts:

-The blue whale is the largest animal in the world.

-Some species of whales can sing, for example humpback and blue whales. They produce sounds like music and use this to communicate and to locate in the ocean.
During de mating season males sing to females and between them.

-Some whales can stay under water for 90 minutes.

-Whales sleep only with half brain each time. The other half is for remember to go up to the surface to breathe.

-Whales swallow their weight in water to feed.

-The most famous whale is Moby Dick because is the protagonist of the film Mobi Dick

 THE END