Paragraph on “How many kinds of whale are there?” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

How many kinds of whale are there?

There are many different kinds of whale, but they can be grouped into two sorts : those with teeth and those without. Those without teeth are called baleen whales. Whales such as the blue whale (above), the right whale and the humpback whale are all baleen whales. In-stead of teeth, baleen whales have enormous rows of brushes, called baleen plates, inside their mouths attached to their top jaws. The food of baleen whales is tiny, shrimp-like creatures called krill. You can imagine how much krill is needed to satisfy the appetite of an animal as large as a whale, but luckily krill is very plentiful in some seas, and all the whale has to do is swim through a swarm of krill with its mouth open. Of course, it will have taken in a great gulp of sea water at the same time, but as the whale closes its mouth, the water is forced out past the baleen plates. krill, however, remains inside the mouth, trapped by the baleen plates which act as a sieve. The killer whale (bottom), the sperm whale and the bottle-nosed whale are toothed whales. Porpoises and dolphins are also toothed whales, although they are quite small compared to the blue whale, which can grow to a length of 3o m (100 ft) and weigh 13o tonnes. Toothed whales eat a variety of food; sperm whales eat squid, and other whales eat fish. Killer whales often hunt in packs and will eat many things. They have even been known to attack and eat other whales as large as the blue whale. On the opposite page is a pair of jaws from a baleen whale and a tooth from a sperm whale.