The Southern Right Whale, by Richard Ellis, can be seen during the winter on the south west coast in Victoria, Australia.

Whales and Dolphins (Cetacea) Home Thanks to all those who have produced the photos or art work on this page.  If your work is displayed without a link to your site, please send me the link and your photo can become a link.

Most whales and dolphins are not critically endangered but some are.

The Right Whales are not doing well at all.  Because their numbers have gone so low their gene pool is very narrow.  This means that a loss of even one whale can make them even more vulnerable to inbreeding.  The whales did not cause this problem for themselves, we did and there are many people who are quite happy to keep on causing it.  There are people out there who will kill every whale that they can get their hands on.

To learn about the danger of �narrowly based gene pools� see GE/GM Crops in a Nutshell.

Whales and how they are grouped..

There are 3 groups in the Order of cetaceans, they are Mysticeti the baleen whales, Odontoceti the tooth whales and dolphins and Archaeoceti the ancient extinct whales which are known only from the fossil record.

About the words Mysticeti and Odontoceti.

The part of each of these words on their ending �ceti� comes from two extinct languages; Old Greek and Latin.  The old Greek word (not Modern Greek) for whale is �ketos� in Modern Greek it is �phalena�.  The Latin word for whale is �cetus�.

The baleen are the strainers that hang down from the roof of the mouth of these whales.  The baleen serve as strainers to catch the krill and plankton as the water is ejected from the whale�s mouth.  This name, Mysticeti has been given to these whales because the hanging baleen is reminiscent of a moustache.  The Greek word for moustache is moustaki.

The toothed whales and dolphins get the first part of their name Odontoceti because the Greek word for tooth is �dondi�; hence the English word orthodontist whereas the first part of the word dentist comes from Latin.

How many types of whales and dolphins are there?

In the Order of Mysticeti there are 3 Families which contain 12 species.  In the Order of Odontoceti there are 8 Families which are said to contain about 65 species.

To learn how these words Order, Family and Species come about and are used, go to Classification/Taxonomy section (Answers #1).

Species List of some great and interesting Cetacea

General Information

There are still a few countries who allow whaling.

The Japanese are perhaps the greatest offenders. They try to tell the world that they are doing scientific whaling.  Don't they realise that the whole world knows that they are lying through their teeth. By using the term scientific whaling it is meant to appear that they care about whales. These whales are for the Japanese whale-meat market. It is often said that the Japanese are always concerned about saving face.

Well they had better hurry up and do something about stopping this outdated barbaric practice or the caring people of the planet will start to put them into the same category as the Chinese farmers of bear bile, Korean dog torturers and those who use children as soldiers.
Horrible people, grrr shudder..

Remember that there are many caring Japanese people who are also against whaling.

THE GUARDIAN

After reading 'A whale for the killing' i found it hard to believe that almost nobody took any notice of what a whale was trying to say when some sportsmen were killing its mate.  Here is the story in brief.

A true story about two fin whales...

Stop Whaling Now

www.stopwhalingnow.com

Japanese Whaling Becomes an Industry Out of Control

A Greenpeace Site

Japan's "Scientific" Whaling: A Deadly Scam

Giants Of The Sea

General Information on Whales and Dolphins

Another great Australian site.

www.oceania.org.au