Are Whales Fish, Or Marine Mammals? Here's The Must Know Truth!

Whales are known to be part of the cetacean family.

A whale is thoroughly a water resident all the time. But when it comes to whether whales are mammals or fish, one has to pause because whales are also considered mammals.

In the world, there are 94 species of cetaceans found. They are divided into 14 families and then into two subcategories - baleen whales (Mysticeti, including the rorqual and humpback whale) and toothed whales (Odontoceti, which includes narwhals, killer whales, dolphins, and porpoises).

A humpback whale is known to have some bony material known as baleen that can filter tiny prey like zooplankton from the ocean. Toothed cetaceans are known to have teeth and feed on animal bodies like fish, penguins, and seals.

Sharks look a lot like whales but are considered a group of fish species even though they give birth to live young ones. (like mammals).

Is a whale a species of fish?

People often believe that whales are fish as they live in the ocean. However, the truth is quite different. Whales are not fish. Whales are actually considered marine mammal species.

Mammals (marine mammals and land mammals) are warm-blooded animals that give birth to live young, breathe air, and feed their young with milk. The milk is produced from the mammary glands found in the mother and fed to the baby.

All cetaceans (whale, porpoise, and dolphin) are known to breathe air and has to come to the surface for oxygen. Fish are known to utilize their gills to get oxygen from the water. They do not need to come to the surface.

Many fish species are unable to live above water as they do not possess the organs and lungs to breathe air. Fish also do not give birth to live young. They only lay eggs, and later baby fish known as larvae are hatched from the eggs.

Regarding the number of children, fish are animals that can lay thousands of eggs in a year. Whales and other mammal species bear only one young every few years.

Only some fish species carry their eggs inside them instead of putting them in the water to get them hatched. After a fish is born, it is rarely seen that the young fish is cared for by its parents.

The fish does not get any food or milk from their parents. Many fish species are hatched with a sack that provides them with the nutrients they need to live until they learn to fetch food themselves.

Strikingly, female whales are known to feed their young by producing milk using their mammary glands. This milk gives their baby the right amount of nutrients to turn into a young and healthy young.

A baby whale in some species receives milk from the other for up to two years.

Whales are known to be warm-blooded marine mammals, while fish are known to be ectothermic cold-blooded animals. Being cold-blooded allows fish to live in cold waters without using up many calories and accumulating body fat to stay warm.

For whales to live in cold water, they need a thick layer of insulating fat to save their organs from freezing. A whale's diet consists of fish a lot.

Many whale and dolphin species won't be able to live if they don't get a supply of fish and other tiny aquatic life. Fish are known to only feed on smaller fish or other tiny organisms.

Why whale is not fish?

Like us humans, whales, dolphins, and porpoises are mammals. Mammals have a few characteristics that make them mammals.

Mammals are known to breathe oxygen from the atmosphere. They have nostrils that are connected to a group of lungs. Dolphins and whales come to the surface to breathe.

Mammals like whales and dolphins have hair. Some whales, like right whales and humpback whales, have short hair on their faces. For other species of whales, the hair stays when they are just born or in the womb. The young creatures shed this hair after birth.

Mammals are known to give birth to live young. Many animals reproduce by laying eggs.

However, whales and dolphins are known to reproduce by pregnancies, and the young develop inside the body of the mother. After being born, dolphins and whales are given milk produced from the mother's mammary glands.

Whales and dolphins possess slits under their bodies that have mammary glands. As these mammals have to nurse their young underwater, the milk produced by dolphins and whales has a more fat content that helps it to remain together in the water.

Like us, whales and dolphins can control their body temperature underwater. They are warm-blooded. They can maintain the temperature without any care for the environment they are in. Cold-blooded animals and their body temperatures depend on the environment's temperature.

What is a female whale called?

Male whales are known as bulls, while female whales are called cows.

Young whales are called calves.

What are whales classified as?

Whales fall under Animalia. They are part of the phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Artiodactyla, and class Cetaceamorpha. There are a lot of families and genera associated with the class.