Types of Whales
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The scientific community places whales, along with dolphins and porpoises, in the Cetacea order. Whale types then get differentiated into baleen and toothed categories, corresponding to the physical properties guiding their hunting methods.
Baleen whales get their name from the baleen plates that line their upper jaw. As they travel the world's oceans, baleen whales gulp large amounts of water containing smaller species such as krill. When they close their mouths and expel the water, the baleen acts as a filter, keeping the krill and other smaller species in the mouth, waiting to be swallowed and digested.
There are four baleen whale families in the suborder Mysticeti, with thirteen or more species, depending on the scientific source. The links for each family point to more detailed information.
- Balaenidae: Right Whales and Bowhead Whale
- Neobalaenidae: Pygmy Right Whale
- Eschrichtiidae: Gray Whale
- Balaenopteridae or Rorqual Whales
Toothed Whales (suborder Odontoceti), as the name implies, use their teeth to capture their food. The suborder also includes the dolphins and porpoises. It is further divided into approximately ten families, consisting of seventy species, again depending on which scientific source you consult.
Whales are additionally differentiated according to size, with the terms great whales versus lesser whales used as organizing tools. Political rather than scientific reasoning underlies this distinction. The term great whales describes the largest members of the cetacean order. While the baleen whales are the largest cetaceans, ranging in size from the average twenty foot pygmy right whale to the average one hundred foot blue whale, the sperm whale, a toothed whale, grows up to sixty feet in length, and also gets included in the great whale category.
Historical, cultural and political factors explain the great whale versus lesser whale distinction.
The largest whales, for example, were the natural focus of the commercial whaling industry over the course of its history. Whalers chose species to hunt based on size rather than science. A society's economic choices often influence the literature and art of the day. Whaling in art and literature of the time commonly focused on great whale species.
Commercial whaling technology improved in the early twentieth century to the point of driving large whale species toward extinction. States with whaling interests recognized the problem of diminishing whale stocks, and following the end of WWII, they negotiated the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (1946). At the time, they intended to create an international forum to coordinate their great whale stock management plans and stabilize their economic interests.
Today the institutional body of the convention, the International Whaling Commission (IWC), uses the term great whales when discussing commercial whale management plans. Since 1986 IWC member states have supported a pause in commercial whaling of great whale species, i.e., the baleen whales and the sperm whale. Of course, no political explanation completely covers the greater versus lesser distinction. The IWC also lists bottlenose whales (another toothed species) as a zero catch limit species on their schedule, the formal document that lists commercial whaling quotas for individual species.
© 2007 Patricia A. Michaels