Introduction

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Mysticetes

11 species

Migrate huge distances to find food patches.

Need highly dense patches of prey and to consume large masses.

Have hundreds of baleen plates that hang from upper jaw, used to filter

food. Have grooves in throat to expand volume of throat to take in lots

of water. Then use tongue to force water out of mouth through baleen

plates to filter for food.

Rorquals are fast moving, sleek mysticetes.

Marine Mammals

Cetacea

Pinnipedia

Sirenia

Carnivora - Polar bears

Sea otters

All marine mammals have gone from the sea to the land back to the sea. This has happened at least 5 separate times.

Arcyocetes - common ancestor of Mystecetes and Odontocetes. Semi-aquatic, spending most of it's time foraging in water. Lived about 45 MYA.

Highly dispersed individuals. use echolocation to find each other.

They use very low frequencies as it travels further (sounds travels faster in water).

They make slow, pulse, repeat sounds. Smaller animals can't make as low a frequency as larger whales.

We can use sonograms/graphs to map the vocalization of humpback whales. We can see themes, repeated sequences and similarities in themes between whales that frequent different breeding sites. When in different ocean

Mysticetes

MArine Mammals