Whales

Posted by
John Blatchford
Feb 21, 2008

Here is a list of my ‘Whale’ articles so far:

Baleen Whales

Right Whales – 4 species - My article about the Bowheads and Right Whales covers the whole family (Balaenidae)

Rorquals – 8 species - Humpbacks are not, in many ways, typical of the family Balaenopteridae (the rorquals), and a better representative might well be the Blue Whale (an article is planned for very soon to present names at least, of all other rorquals).

That will only leave 2 species; the Gray Whale and the Pygmy Right Whale, each in a family of their own. These two are neither Right Whales nor Rorquals, but they are certainly among the 14 species of Baleen Whales

Toothed Whales

Oceanic Dolphins – 40 species - Risso’s Dolphin and the Killer Whale are my two dolphin articles so far (the Killer Whale is a dolphin). I wrote about Risso’s Dolphin because I find the story of ‘Pelorus Jack’ very interesting, and then about Killer Whales because … well because they’re fantastic! I also wrote an earlier article about Dolphin Conservation where I looked at some of the problems whales face. There are about forty species of dolphin (although six of them are usually called whales).

River Dolphins – 4 species.

Porpoises – 6 species - Dawn Smith has written a nice article about the Vaquita (which is close to extinction).

Family Monodontidae – 2 species – both the Beluga and the Narwhal are covered in my article ‘White Whales’.

The Sperm Whale is in a family of his own, but there are also the closely related Pygmy Sperm Whale and Dwarf Sperm Whale.

That only leaves the Beaked Whales – about 20 species – and very little is known about most of them!