Whales: 21 Facts You Won't Believe!

Whales are astonishing mammals and are found in all of our world's oceans. Even though whales are purely aquatic they breathe air and are warm-blooded animals like humans. Whale's bodies are adapted to survive in icy waters and enable them to go deep underwater. Whales have a thick layer of fat tissue called blubber which acts as insulation from the cold.

Whales can be broadly classified into two categories. These categories are baleen whales and toothed whales. Baleen whales have baleens instead of teeth. Baleen plates are bristle-like plates made of keratin. Baleen Plates filter water out but retain larger food. Baleen plates in some whales can be as large as 16.4 ft (5 m). Whales like the humpback whales, gray whales, blue whales, bowhead whales, North Atlantic right whales, etc fall under this baleen whales category. The other category of whales is the toothed whales. As the name suggests they have teeth. Common toothed whales are killer whales, beluga whales, sperm whales.

All of these different species of whales have different habitats and breeding grounds and rituals and food habits. Whales, dolphins, and porpoises belong to the order called Cetartiodactyla.

Although whales are found in all the oceans, single or a group of whales or school of whales, they prefer waters of the colder Northern and Southern hemispheres. They migrate towards the Equator during gestation where their favorite feeding grounds reside. Whales such as humpback whales and blue whales are known to travel thousands of miles without even feeding. Whales in the southern hemisphere migrate upwards and whales in the northern hemisphere migrate downwards.

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