Rorquals are baleen whales of the family Balaenopteridae, characterized by elongate bodies, pleated ventral grooves (ventral furrows), and generally falcate dorsal fins, and include genera such as Balaenoptera and Megaptera. They are specialized lunge feeders, using expandable throat pleats and a distensible buccal cavity to engulf large volumes of prey-laden water, which is then filtered through keratinous baleen plates. Rorquals exhibit extreme body-size evolution, with several species among the largest animals known, and show distinct migratory behavior between high-latitude feeding grounds and low-latitude breeding areas, playing major roles in marine trophic dynamics and biogeochemical cycling.
Where are the great marine animals of the Mediterranean, such as the fin whale, the sperm whale or the bottlenose dolphin? How does their distribution change over a few weeks? All indications suggest that these species shift ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 30, 2026
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Denny Glover was hoping for a big catch when he went fishing with buddies on the Sacramento River, but he wasn't expecting a fully grown humpback whale.
Ecology
Sep 19, 2026
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Humpback whale mothers may experience grief when their calves die, a rare research observation led by Griffith University and Sea World Foundation has found.
Plants & Animals
Sep 16, 2026
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It started with a simple message: "This is the year to do something small for something huge." Now, 17 years later, the Whitsundays region has some of the best protection in the world for migrating humpback whales.
Plants & Animals
Aug 28, 2026
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Female humpback whales off the coast of Brazil now have their pick of mates, who slap the water with their tails and jostle for attention—a scene that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago.
Plants & Animals
Aug 28, 2026
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The southern humpback whale migration is in full swing. Tens of thousands of whales are now making their journey from warm Australian waters in the north to their cold feeding grounds in Antarctica.
Plants & Animals
Aug 27, 2026
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The companies fishing for Antarctic krill have harvested so much so quickly that the season had to close in August 2026, three months before it was scheduled to end. That's the second consecutive year of an early closing.
Ecology
Aug 21, 2026
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363
The effects of global warming depend on species: The losers are legion, but a lucky few are winners. Now, researchers have shown that baleen whales are taking advantage of a newly opened-up fish bonanza in the Greenland Sea, ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 20, 2026
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"WHALE AT ONE O'CLOCK!" Eager cruise passengers zipping around New York's southern shores rush to the starboard bow: A humpback whale is up for air, a breathtaking sighting set against Manhattan's iconic skyline.
Ecology
Aug 18, 2026
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11
An international team of researchers has uncovered a previously undetected structure in the birdsong of Bengalese finches that has the same statistical patterns found in human languages.
Plants & Animals
Aug 7, 2026
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