The question of what is the whale may be puzzling. The large, powerful animals live in the ocean and are revered by many cultures. While not technically a mammal, whales are very large marine creatures that inhabit the deepest parts of the ocean. Their streamlined bodies resemble those of fish, and their tails have horizontal flukes. They have one or two blowholes in their mouths and teeth.
The whale is the largest member of the order of cetaceans, and it is the largest of the five species of these animals. Any cetacean greater than three metres in length is considered a whale. The smallest of these is the dwarf sperm whale, which is only 2.7 metres long. The largest species of whales, known as blue whales, are 30 metres long and weigh over 200 tons. There are many different types of whales, but they all share the same characteristics and behaviors.
A whale can breathe air and nurse its young with milk. Its flippers, called fins, are paddle-shaped, and encase hand bones. Its back limbs are tiny, so the embryo loses them before birth. Some of them retain vestigial pelvic bones. The spine is exposed, but it is not entirely where it should be. While the rest of the body is covered by flesh, it is still missing from its normal position.
A whale can’t mate with land mammals, so it can only reproduce within its aquatic habitat. Because of this, whales are unable to go on land to calve. This makes the delivery of the baby difficult, since it risks drowning. After the delivery, the mother is required to squirt milk into the mouth of the newborn, which is approximately one-third to half its length. Luckily, this process is simple enough because the mother’s milk is rich in fat and nutrient-rich.
The whale’s name is derived from the word “bug” in English. The word ‘bug’ is a synonym for a small arthropod. Its name is a reference to the “great white whale” in Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick. Its ‘great white whale’ is an albino sperm whale, which is partly based on the historically attested bull whale Mocha Dick. Similarly, the term ‘whale’ is used in Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories.
There are many interesting facts about whales. Apparently, whales are the largest animals on Earth. Their size can range from the six-pound dwarf sperm whale to the colossal blue whale, which can reach 100 feet long and weigh more than 200 tons. They are warm-blooded and nurse their young. It’s not surprising, then, that they’re able to migrate so far. This is an amazing fact about the life of these creatures.
