Analysis of Whales

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 10th grade February 2008

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While growing up many of us have seen the movie Pinocchio. The bad depiction of a whale eating Pinocchio and Geppeto has given a lot of us a bad vibe towards whales. Well that is all about to change. After reading this paper, one will see how majestic and graceful and gentle these magnificent creatures really are.

Whales are the world's largest living creatures. They are mammals which mean they breathe air through their lungs which they get through their blowholes not their mouths; they give birth to their young live, have warm blood and can grow hair. They are the only mammals that live their entire lives in the water. They belong to the order of Cetacean. There are hundreds of different species of Whales, each much different than the other, but all whales contain specific traits that make them some of the most fascinating creatures on the planet.

What a whale eats depends entirely on what kind of whale it is. There are two types, Baleen Whales, which use millions of broom-like bristles called Baleen to catch millions of tiny organisms such as shrimp, krill and plankton. The other type of whale is called Odontoceti. These are the toothed whales that eat squid and other small animals that live in the ocean. They are predators and use their teeth to chew the food and kill their prey. Most whales though, regardless of what or how they eat are still very gentle creatures.

Whales are the biggest creatures on the planet. The biggest whale is the Blue Whale. Blue whales can grow to be up to 110 feet long and weigh up to 174 tons. This would make the blue whale bigger than any of the dinosaurs. The smallest whale is called the Dwarf Sperm Whale and they are...