Mysticeti

Description

Morphology

- Pennon S
- Rostre
-
- vent
- dorsal Fin
-
- caudal Stalk
- caudal fin
-
- Anus
- urogenital slit
- glands mammaires
-
- pectoral fins
-
- furrow

They are generally larger than the odoncètes and the Femelle is larger than the male. They are the largest animals of planet. They have two vent S (“nostrils” of breathing) which produce the vapor breath which characterizes them.

Food

Nourishing Krill (small shellfish) and of Plankton, the mysticètes take a great quantity of water in the mouth then, placing their language at the top of the palate, they push it out of the mouth through their pennons which is used to them as filter by retaining food.

Pennons

The pennons are made of keratin, one of the components of the human hair or the horn of the ruminants. Arranged in 160 small brushes, long of an about sixty cm, they are used with the whale to filter the shells or the shellfish which it finds by aspiring the mud to the sea-bed.

Behavior

The whales with pennons live in all the Océan S. Some, the such gray whales, make migrations, nourishing themselves in cool water during the hot season, then going under the Tropique S to reproduce.

At the time of the loves , several applicants can court the same female while rolling themselves and rubbing on it. After these feverish ballets, the Accouplement itself is often practiced with 3 partners: the 2 males which endeavor to have the same female help it, in fact, alternatively, to maintain its balance in water. Length 2 m and weighing 60 kg, the male body lines up at rest in folds of the abdomen.

Divings and geysers

The gray whale cannot remain more than 10 to 15 min. in diving and very often goes up during its meals to swallow and breathe. Its explosive breath made its misfortune a long time, because the hunters saw by far the spray water and vapor geyser which it expels violently with each time it makes surface.

Systematic

Traditional classification

The sub-order contains 4 families:

Eschrichtiidae Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951 -- gray Whale
Neobalaenidae Gray, 1873
Balaenopteridae Gray, 1864 - rorquals
Balaenidae Gray, 1821

Phylogenetic

See also: Cetacea (phylogenetic classification), History of the Cetacea

The Balaenopteridae and the Eschrichtiidae form a group Monophylétique.

──o Mysticeti ├─? Kekenodontinae (extinct) ├─? Llanocetidae (extinct) ├─? Mammalodon (extinct) ├─o Aetiocetidae (extinct) ├─o Janjucetus └─o ├─o Balaenidae │ ├─o Balaena │ └─o Eubalaena ├─o Neobalaenidae │ └─o Caperea └─o ├─o Cetotheriidae (extinct) │ └─o Eobalaenoptera , fossil discovered in 2004 └─o ├─o Eobalaenoptera (extinct) ├─o Parabalaenoptera (extinct) └─o Balaenopteridae and Eschrichtiidae ├─o │ ├─o │ │ ├─o B. musculus │ │ ├─o Megaptera novaeangliae │ │ └─o Eschrichtius robustus │ └─o │ ├─o B. physalus │ └─o │ ├─o B. edeni │ └─o │ ├─o B. borealis │ └─o B. brydei └─o ├─o B. bonaerensis └─o B. will acutorostra

External bonds

Site of information on the Cetacea

Zh-min-nan: Chhiu-keng Zh-yue: 鬚鯨亞目

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