Whale

Whale
Southern right whale Eubalaena australis
Scientific classification
Kingdom Information
Domain	Eukaryota
Kingdom	Animalia
Subkingdom	Bilateria
Branch	Deuterostomia
Phylum Information
Superphylum	Chordata
Phylum	Vertebrata
Infraphylum	Gnathostomata
Class Information
Superclass	Tetrapoda
Class	Mammalia
Sub-class	Theriiformes
Infra-class	Holotheria
Order Information
Order	Cetacea
Population statistics

Whales are marine mammals of the order Cetacea, and a clear counterexample to the Theory of Evolution.

Description

Whales are separated into the toothed whales, Odontocetes (which includes dolphins, porpoises, narwhals, beaked whales and sperm whales), and the whalebone, or baleen, whales, also called Mysticetes. The latter are mostly very large, which, instead of teeth, have baleen (whalebone) to filter small prey from the water; they are what people generally think of when the word whale is used. The whalebone whales include the rorquals - the blue whale, fin whale, sei whale, Bryde's whale, minke whale, and humpback whale; the grey whale; and the various right whales.

Although whales are famed for the massive size reached by some species, such as the blue whale (the largest animal to ever live), others are relatively small, like the pygmy right whale which grows to about 20 feet. Though whales have many traits in common with fish (including fins and tails) they are classified as mammals under the Linnaean taxonomy classification system because they breathe air and lactate. Whales have a number of remarkable features including:

• they decide when to breathe, rather than breathing unconsciously
• they sleep 8 hours a day, yet need to be conscious to breathe
• they can communicate with each other by making remarkably loud noises
• these extraordinary noises can travel for miles underwater
• the females nurse their calves while swimming underwater
• the males have a unique cooling system for their internal reproductive organs, involving the circulation of cooled blood from the extremities directly around the testes before returning to the heart
• whales, along with humans and horses, are some of the few mammal species that do not possess baculum (penile bone)
• mysticetes have two blow-holes, while odontocetes only have one
• the blow-holes pass air above water, yet resist intense pressure underwater
• they have massive brains, much larger than the brains of other mammals

Taxonomy

Two distinct kinds of whales exist worldwide: toothed whales of the suborder Odontoceti, and whalebone, or baleen, whales of the suborder Mysticeti.

Baleen whales

Mysticeti includes thirteen species in six genera, all chiefly characterized by the presence of plates of baleen hanging from their upper jaws inside their mouths. These plates are used to filter small animals such as krill, or small shoaling fish (herring or mackerel). To accommodate the baleen, as well as to catch enormous schools of krill and fish, these whales have huge mouths; the baleen in the bowhead (Balaena mysticetus) for example is up to ten feet in length.

• Suborder Mysticeti: Baleen whales

Family Balaenidae: Right whales

Genus Balaena

Bowhead, or Greenland right whale, Balaena mysticetus

Genus Eubalaena

North Atlantic right whale, Eubalaena glacialis

North Pacific right whale, Eubalaena japonica

Southern right whale, Eubalaena australis

Family Balaenopteridae: Rorquals

Subfamily Balaenopterinae

Genus Balaenoptera

Antarctic minke whale, Balaenoptera bonaerensis

Common minke whale, Balaenoptera acutorostrata

Bryde's whale, Balaenoptera brydei

Blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus

Fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus

Sei whale, Balaenoptera borealis

Subfamily Megapterinae

Genus Megaptera

Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae

Family Eschrichtiidae

Genus Eschrichtius

Gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus

Family Neobalaenidae

Genus Caperea

Pygmy right whale, Caperea marginata

Toothed whales

Odontoceti comprises twenty-six species in ten genera, excluding the smaller dolphins and porpoises. All possess conical teeth in one form or another, with some bearing rudimentary teeth only. Only one species (sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus) reaches lengths of over sixty feet; several beaked whales are rarely over thirty feet, while the remaining species reach lengths less than that.

• Suborder Odontoceti: Toothed whales

Family Monodontidae

Genus Delphinapterus

Beluga, Delphinapterus leucas

Genus Monodon

Narwhal, Monodon monoceros

Family Physeteridae: Sperm whales

Genus Physeter

Sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus

Genus Kogia

Dwarf sperm whale, Kogia sima

Pygmy sperm whale, Kogia breviceps

Family Ziphidae: Beaked whales

Genus Berardius

Arnoux's beaked whale, Berardius arnuxii

Baird's beaked whale, Berardius bairdii

Subfamily Hyperoodontidae

Genus Hyperoodon

Northern bottlenose whale, Hyperoodon ampullatus

Southern bottlenose whale, Hyperoodon planifrons

Genus Indopacetus

Indo-Pacific beaked whale, Indopacetus pacificus

Genus Mesoplodon

Andrews' beaked whale, Mesoplodon bowdoini

Blainville's beaked whale, Mesoplodon densirostris

Gervais' beaked whale, Mesoplodon europaeus

Ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, Mesoplodon ginkgodens

Gray's beaked whale, Mesoplodon grayi

Hector's beaked whale, Mesoplodon hectori

Hubbs' beaked whale, Mesoplodon carlhubbsi

Perrin's beaked whale, Mesoplodon perrini

Pygmy beaked whale, Mesoplodon peruvianus

Sowerby's beaked whale, Mesoplodon bidens

Spade-toothed whale, Mesoplodon traversii

Stejneger's beaked whale, Mesoplodon stejnegeri

Strap-toothed whale, Mesoplodon layardii

True's beaked whale, Mesoplodon mirus

Genus Tasmacetus

Shepherd's beaked whale, Tasmacetus shepherdi

Genus Ziphius

Cuvier's beaked whale, Ziphius cavirostris

Family Delphinidae

Family Phocoenidae

Evolutionary claims

The question of how whales and their relatives allegedly evolved from terrestrial mammals has intrigued evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin's suggestion that they may have evolved from ancient mammals. He suggested that their development may have been started by something similar to a behavior observed in bears.

"In North America the black bear was seen . . . swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."

Evolutionary biologists estimate the last ancestor of whales and hippos lived about 25 million years ago., with a more recent suggestion that modern whales and their relatives arose from ancient artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates such as deer and hippopotami). More specifically, they believe that whales evolved from Pakicetus through Aetiocetus, because of the similarities in their bone structure. For example, Pakicetus has nostrils at the front of its skull, Aetiocetus has nostrils in the middle of its skull, and the modern gray whale has nostrils at the top of its skull. This kinship has been termed the whippo hypothesis.

This theory of cetacean origins contrasts with the young earth creationist position that whales were created about 6000 years ago, before land animals. The various theories regarding evolutionary origins, such as Darwin's "thought experiment" about a bear-like ancestry, the modern "deer ancestry" theory, as well as the above Pakicetus to Aetiocetus to gray whale descent requires direct observation under the first step of the scientific method. To further compound the difficulties in the theory of evolution, it was recently discovered that rorqual whales possess a sensory organ at the front of their lower jaws, informing the brain of stresses and pressure of water when the mouth is open to collect food. This organ, according to the demands of evolution, would have to appear at the same time as the following:

• an increase in size of the upper and lower jaws;
• a change in the lower jaw structure and the addition of chin grooves to allow the intake of large amounts of water;
• the addition of vibrissae (touch-sensitive organs) to detect krill;
• the addition of counter-current heat exchange organs within the tongue, preventing heat loss when feeding in arctic waters.

Whales in their current form also appear suddenly in the fossil record, something that cannot be explained by current evolutionary science. With that sudden appearance is also the trait that cannot be explained by anything other than a deliberate act of creation: baleen filter plates. Gray whales, right whales, and rorquals carry these filters; to do so according to evolution requires an intentional act, in this case a change in diet to smaller prey and the realization that it needs a filtering system to catch that prey. As it remains, the descent of whales from terrestrial ancestors according to evolution cannot be proved.

Whales and intelligent design theory criticism of evolutionary origins

• Killer Whales -- Zombie Science Author Explains a Fatal Challenge to Evolution by biologist Jonathan Wells

Whaling industry

Bradford, Icebound Whaling Ship.

See: Whaling

Whales in literature

The Bible

Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah 1:17 (KJV)

The great fish that swallowed Jonah is often thought of as being a whale, although the translation of 'great fish' is not a precise designation of species but may indicate any physically large, ocean-going creature. The physical difficulty of having a human be swallowed by a whale and survive the intense pressure of diving, lack of air and acidic environment of the stomach, and the fact that the Bible says that God "prepared" the fish has led some to suggest the creature may be uniquely and specially prepared by God for the purpose. Alternatively, Jonah may have been simply protected by supernatural means.

Whales are mentioned in three other places in the King James Version of the Bible:

• Genesis 1:21: "And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good."
• Job 7:12: "Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?"
• Ezekiel 32:2: "Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas: and thou camest forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers.

Fiction

Arguably the most famous book about whales is Herman Melville's Moby Dick, about a whaling-ship captain obsessed with hunting down the sperm whale (Moby Dick) which had bitten off one of his legs.

See also

• Orca
• Dolphin

Further reading

• Carwardine, Mark. Whales & Dolphins (Smithsonian Handbooks) (2002) excerpt and text search
• Creighton, Margaret S. Rites and Passages: The Experience of American Whaling, 1830-1870. (1995). 233 pp. excerpt and text search
• Dolin, Eric Jay. Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America (2007) 480 pp. excerpt and text search
• Ellis, Richard. Men and Whales. (1991). 542 pp.
• Papastavrou, Vassili. Whale (DK Eyewitness Books) (2004) excerpt and text search
• Stoett, Peter J. The International Politics of Whaling (1997) online edition
• Berta, Annalisa Return to the Sea: The Life and Evolutionary Times of Marine Mammals 2012