WHALES!

Whales are basically:

KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chorodata
SUBPHYLUM: Vertebrata
CLASS: Mammalia
ORDER: Cetacea

That is, if you still go in for all the physical biological classification gubbins. Generally, whales are aquatic mammals that once used to look like dogs (yay) and lived on land. One day one fell in the sea (after a stick), became very fat, lost its fur and had so much fun swimming like a sea-trundelling otter that it got all its friends to join in the game. (The stick alas, has never been found).

Unfortunately, the whales never learned to grow gills like fish, and instead put their noses on their heads to breathe out of whenever they go back to the surface.

There is no real difference between Whales, Porpoises and Dolphins. It is all a conspiracy. At best one can apply these terms along the lines of 'small' 'medium' and 'large', but this isn't very scientific and whales look down on such behaviour. A praticularly talkative whale once told a grey-bearded fisherman that Cetacea are actually divided into just over 80 species, some Mysticetes (the Baleen whales) and some Odontocetes (toothed whales).

Whales are still being hunted lots to this day. For all intents and purposes, humanity succeeded in systematically wiping out many species of the Great whales. If you can remember eatng all the crisps in a crisp packet, leaving only the few crumby bits left in a corner at the bottom that is just isn't worth trying to get to, then that's what people did to whales after the invention of the steam engine (allowing whalers to catch the fast Blue Whale) and the explosive harpoon.

After one species of whale became to scarce to hunt, they moved on to the next-largest species and repeated the procedure. Today, much of the whaling has been curtailed, and some populations of whales (though now more like localised bands) have grown in numbers and a few have even reached healthy levels. However, 'healthy' means 'fit for hunting' to some people, and added to the fact that some nations still hunt even the most endangered of whales and that whales are under threat from many other human activities, the outlook for these wonderful creatures still looks pretty grim :(

 

GOOD WHALE POPULATIONS

Humpback Whale - This bosiest of whales hides out with the tourists and there are still quite a few safe populations around the world. (Cunning).

Fin Whale - As the Blue whales were wiped out the Fin whales grabbed their houses fo themselves. Still number almost a million.

Sperm Whale - Were hunted muchly, but lots hid deep in the sea so still over a million left now.

 

 

Balaenidae - Right Whales (named cos were the right whales to hunt), Bowhead Whale (3)

Neobalaenidae - Pygmy Right Whale

Eschnchtiidae - Gray Whale

Balaenoptendae - Roqual (means has pleated underbelly) Whales (6)

Kogiidae - the ickle versions of the Sperm Whale

Physeteridae -The Sperm Whale (yay)

Monodontidae - Narwhal and Beluga Whales

Delphindae - Beaked Whales

Ziphiidae - Dolphins that live in the Ocean

Iniidae - The really endangered Amazon River Dolphin

Pontoporiidae - Yangtze River Dolphin

Platanisdae - Indus and Ganges River Dolpihns

Phocoenidae - Porpoises

 

BAD WHALE POPULATIONS

Baiji River Dolphin - Around 100 only!!! :( Not hunted much anymore, but cos they live in a bust river they might not last much longer. Their name means 'to be left behind'.

Northern Right Whale - Hunted completely out of the world except for a few (300) that survive on little pockets. Still get hit lots by boats while feeding *sob*

Bowhead - Hunted lots in their Arctic habitat. Some still taken each year by native hunters. Commercially extinct ( = down to three digit population).

Southern Right Whale - Faring better than their Northern counterparts. About 3000 to 5000 left now.

Blue Whale - Only 6000 to 10,000 of these huge wonderful creatures remain on this planet. A few decades ago whalers were taking in around 50,000 of them a year, so you can imagine they are now commercially extinct.

Minke Whale - Still being hunted! Having run out of Blue, Fin, Bryde and Sei whales, whalers have now been left only with the smallest Roqual, the Minke, to hunt commercially. Hunting controlled but populations down to about 500,000-750,000.

Gray Whale - Only about 20,000 left, but seeing as they were formerly down to a handful and have come back to bose our boats once more (despite people having done the original damage), these whales are doing okay.

Humpback Whale - Megaptera Novaeangliae

I know it is a pop-culture thing but the Humpback has to be my favourite whale cos of the songs it sings and the fun behaviour patterns it has. This whale is one of the friendliest and intelligent there is (for a great whale), has huge long fins, is fat looking, gets its name from the little lumps that line the top of its head and looks really funny and scary when it feeds.

Sperm Whale - Physeter Macrocephalus

I like this whale cos it dives really deep and has a very silly and near-useless lower jaw. (Maybe used for attracting prey) Scientists have found completely healthy specimens with no lower jaw at all! It also has a huge melon (use still arguable), is the species Moby Dick belonged too and can be found in white irl if you look hard enough (but don't get all obsessed and lose a leg over it).

Narwhal - Monodon Monoceros

The Unicorn Whale! I doubt this whale really got its 'Narwhal' name from its similarity to a bloated corpse, but it is true that its horn was once sold as the horn of the mythical Unicorn (as if horses with horns are better than whales!). The 'horn' is actually a tooth that in males grows outwards to form tusklike proportions. Scientists now don't think the tusk is for breaking ice, but rather that it may be for showing off to girl whales, for duelling or even for focusing sound energy for *sonic* duels *yay*.

 

BOWHEAD!

 

HUMPBACK!

 

Blue Whale - Balaenoptera Musculus

This is the nutty largest thing ever whale that is also known as the Sulphur bottomed whale. A model of it scared me, it still exists in the UK Natural History Museum I think. Apparently a small child can crawl around inside the central arteries of a Blue Whale's circulation system.

Bowhead and Southern Right Whale - Balaena Mysticetus and Eubalaena Australis

These whales are very rare now and I like them cos their heads are upside down. Melville said they had an epic pout but I think it makes them look very unique. No other animal has anywhere near the same sort of facial arrangement as these wonders.

Beluga - Delphinapterus Leucas

This bosey whale has a wobbly head and is white! Belugas sing lots, earning them the title 'sea canaries'. They also *look* flabby and have well developed necks (unlike other whales) and so can turn their heads. I have seen films of these whales and they are just manic nutters.

Dwarf Sperm Whale - Kogia Simus

I simply can't leave out the Dwarf Sperm whale cos it has the saddest, bosiest, bujiest face in the world. I think all Dwarf Sperm whales are born cos their spirits get conned into signing a one-life contract at being a Sperm whale but don't read the 'dwarf' small print until it is too late and so all have the same pitiful expression on their faces all the time.

 

SPERM WHALE!

 

 

NARWHAL!

 

1. The Blue Whale is the Huuuuugest thing ever to live on this planet (but still can't eat a Wagon Wheel sideways). Females are larger than males, the biggest on record being 110' long. (Three buses, or 1/3 of a 100m race distance long).

2. Blue Whales have been known to emit sounds of up to 188 decibels. No other living thing can shout this loud. In fact, sounds like this, when produced underwater can travel the entire width of an ocean, making it hard to talk of whale populations in the usual sense sine they can all hear eachother if they want to.

3. Sperm Whales can dive like nobody's business. They generally stay under for about 1 minute for every foot they are long, but during really deep dives (the ones where they go and fight the evil Giant Squid with silly huge eyes) they can go as far as 2000m!

4. Sperm Whales make fun 'flower' formations when they are under attack. As a group, they all point their heads to a fixed center and all kick about with their tails at the edges to scare off their enemies. They put the baby whales in the middle to protect them.

5. Humpback whales can sing really complex songs for up to hours on end. Each year all the whales of one area all follow a new slightly altered musical score. No one knows quite why this happens (maybe cos they are actually telling new news for the year?) but then we don't even know how they sing yet. When they do (and only males do) they point their heads downwards.

6. Many toothed whales (particularly Belugas) look really silly when they echolocate cos their 'melon' wobbles and pulsates.

 

7. Humpback Whales gang up in groups while feeding. They go under the water and swim in circles, letting out bubbles that scare the fish higher up into a small 'bubblenet'. The whales then rise up and eat the net's contents. Humpbacks are noisiest while feeding. Oh and like most whales, they only eat for a part of the year and spend the rest being hungry. Humpbacks also travel further than any other mammal during migration (though the Gray Whale is attempting to reclaim this record at this moment).

8. Though most whales are really just bosey and not too intelligent Dolphins and Orcas are really smart and can beat dogs at Chess. Dolphins have even been known to learn how to mimic (scarey) human speech sounds with their blow holes. Dolphins have also been used in theraputic techniques, but they are no hippy pushovers and have been known to bop people who are mean to them.

9. Orcas are naughty cos they eat other whales. They even play volleyball with Seal cubs now and then. Still, they look really cool when they come out of the sea by a glacier and 'spyhop' around to see where a seal is on the ice, before disappearing and reappearing to knock the poor muppet off. Watching a group of Orcas perform a coordinated anti-seal strike convinces even the dullest person of their intelligence.

10. Before the days of steam boats and other noisy sea-bound humanity the loudest noises in the oceans were those made by whales. In fact, it is probably the case that all those scared seamen sleeping in the deepest decks of their old wooden ships were hearing whalesong, rather than the moans of the dead. (Maybe they heard moans of dead whales?).

WHALESONG

Yay! Here is a pair of nice whale sounds for you to listen to. If you are very brave you might like to try turning your puter speakers up really high, switching the lights off, imagining you are deep in the sea and then playing them (EEEK).

If you like these sounds, try searching the net for more. You can also buy a nice Whale song CD at Amazon.

 

THE SONGS

P.S. If the silly music gets in the way of the nice Whale noises then just open the whales page in a new window or something :)