More about whales

But first:  Viet Thanh Nguyen on book banning:

"... book banners are wrong no matter how dangerous books can be.  Books are inseparable from ideas, and this is what is at stake:  the struggle over what a child, a reader and a society are allowed to think, to know and to question.  A book can open doors and show the possibility of new experiences, even new identities and futures."

Whale Info

I'm not sure if you can easily read the visual aid that follows.  Just be aware that there are over 80 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises, and they are enormous creatures.

Facts:

The humpback whale is a songster. It creates original 20-minute long songs from clicks and grunts and melodic squeals.  These songs are repeated by other humpbacks.  It's a lot like "Your Hit Parade."

If you want, you can "adopt" a humpback.  They are all named based on their original tail flukes.

I "adopted" "Stub" for a few years.

The humpback is a mysticeti or baleen whale.  Mysticeti means mustache whale because of the hanging baleen sheets in their mouths, through which they screen water to catch minute creatures

(krill) to eat.

The sperm whale has the largest brain ever evolved. It can stay submerged for over an hour and, as mentioned, can dive way way down to get its lunch.

The sperm whale is an odontoceti, or toothed whale, and it is the largest of such creatures.

Captain Ahab didn't have a chance!

Mysticeti (baleen)

Bowhead Whale

Right Whale

Humpback Whale

Gray Whale

Blue Whale

Odontoceti (toothed)

Sperm Whale

Killer Whale

Bottlenose Dolphin

Harbor Porpoise

Susu

Giant Bottlenose Whale

Cuvier's Beaked Whale

Strap-toothed Whale

There is a set of facts and special story about each of our friends, the whales.

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