Do whales and dolphins have hair? Whale & Dolphin Conservation USA
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Just how many cetaceans currently exist in our ocean, by species or population size, is a challenging but important question for scientists. To measure the current population size in cetaceans, scientists rely on a number of different methods. Estimates can also be made using underwater acoustic recordings, mark and recapture methods, and visually identifying individuals based on their marks and scarring. Species found in the open ocean, rather than coastal ecosystems, are harder to study and therefore less is known about their life histories and population status. We know very little about beaked whales that spend much of their time in cold, deep waters, for example, and have few markings that identify individuals when they are seen.
Fin Whales, Sei Whales, Right Whales, and Bowhead Whales
So we’re setting the record straight and busting the most common myths about these marine mammals. Whales, as fascinating and enormous creatures of the deep, often pique people’s curiosity. Among the various aspects that intrigue individuals, a common query pertains to whether these marine mammals have hair.
Do dolphins have hair?
They also have fatty tissue that seems important to their hearing, but the specific mechanisms are not well understood. Smithsonian scientists are exploring how these two groups come to have such different ways of hearing. Whales’ hairs provide a layer of protection against external elements, such as parasites, debris, and foreign objects. The hair on the skin helps in reducing the friction between the whale’s skin and the water, making it easier for the whale to move through the water. Additionally, the hair on the flippers and tail fins act as aerodynamic surfaces, assisting the whale in swimming more efficiently. The belief that whales are so large they can swallow humans alive is as old as the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale.
Why Is The Dead Sea So Salty?
But while there have been instances of humans being engulfed in a whale’s mouth—including, most recently, a lobster fisherman in Cape Cod, Massachusetts—most whales are not even capable of swallowing people. For whales body hair can often be seen on baby whales and depending on the species their body hair may fall off and disappear completely over the first several days/weeks of birth. The volume of their super-sized brains is almost 500 cubic inches, which is more than five times the volume of ours - 80 cubic inches. A sperm whale’s brain weighs up to 9kg (almost 20lbs) which is the weight of a small dog and 6 times heavier than a human brain. Dive deeper into the world of whales and dolphins and learn more about their lives. It may come as a surprise that the tale of the unicorn was most likely inspired by a whale.
Longest and Most Complex Songs
Once a cetacean mother gives birth she feeds thick, nutrient-rich milk full of protein and fat to her young. Once a calf is born and nursing it will stay with its mother for six months to two years. This energy-demanding time means that whales often won’t have another calf for several years.
They also share other characteristics with land mammals, but they have evolved numerous traits that allow for their full-time life in the water. Cerro Ballena is a unique paleontological site located in the Atacama Region of Chile, north of the town of Caldera, along the Pan-American Highway. During road construction that started in 2010, paleontologists discovered a rich fossil site containing dozens of whale skeletons, along with the remains of other extinct marine mammals and marine vertebrates. In 2011, paleontologists from Chile and the United States, including Smithsonian’s Nick Pyenson, conducted rapid documentation and digitization of the site, before road construction was completed in early 2012. At the site the team documented the remains of ten different kinds of marine vertebrates, including billfishes, seals, aquatic sloths, and several different species of whales. The skeletons of over 40 individual large baleen whales dominated the site and included an extinct sperm whale and an extinct walrus-like whale (Odobenocetops), both of which were previously only known from Peru.
Functions of Whales’ Hairs
Sharks, walruses and polar bears sometimes consume smaller toothed whales. Although never observed, there is some evidence that sperm whales and giant squid engage in epic battles. It appears that the whales will eat the squid (their hard beaks are found in the whales’ stomachs) but from the giant sucker scars often found on the face and backs of sperm whales, it’s clear the squids fight back. Some dolphins and porpoises live closer to shore, making them easier to track. Two of the three recognized species of bottlenose dolphins—the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus) and the Burrunan dolphin (Tursiops australis)—tend to spend most of their time in coastal near-shore habitats. However, the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus, familiar to most from the TV show “Flipper”), can be found as two separate populations that spend their time either offshore or close to the coast.
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The filter-feeding baleen whales belong to the Mysticeti group of whales. This group has fewer species today than odontocetes—there are only 14 living species of baleen whales, belonging to four families. The Balaenopteridae family (also known as the rorquals) has the largest number of species and include blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus), the largest vertebrate that has ever existed. Blue whales can reach lengths of over 30 meters (98 feet) and weigh over 190 tons.
Instead, they play an important role in giving the whales a heightened sense of their environment. Baleen whales, a group of filter-feeding whales, have hair follicles, some of which are still visible in some species, even when they attain full size. The humpback whale, for instance, has hairs on the bumps on its head, known as tubercles. Each tubercle contains a single hair follicle, and getting close to a humpback whale may enable one to see them. Whale song is documented in baleen whales, such as humpbacks, fin whales, blue whales, and bowhead whales. How they produce these noises is a mystery because they do not have vocal chords.
Only the population that breeds in Central America remains on the list, and the California blue whale population is also making a comeback. In 2014, a study determined that this subset of blue whales is at about 97 percent of what it was prior to whaling, offering hope that other whale species and populations, with continued protection, can rebound. These behaviors are seen in all cetaceans but more often in groups of larger baleen whales like the humpback, sperm, and gray whales. For orcas, spyhopping is likely used to better see prey at the surface (PDF) or on floating ice. Gaining information about the age of a whale or dolphin is difficult for scientists. Information can be gathered from dead animals that wash up on shore, or from bones that have been sitting in museum collections since the time of whaling.
In 2019, a large sperm whale was found beached with over 200 pounds of trash in its stomach. One of the biggest threats to whale survival is entanglement from fishing gear. Once made with biodegradable wood and ropes, fishing gear is now predominantly made of synthetic materials, like plastic. Today, female right whales are giving birth every 9 years as opposed to every three years as they were in the 1980s, a trend that is likely not only influenced by entanglement but other stressors as well. It wasn’t until recently that humans began to see whales as charismatic and intelligent creatures.
Between 1900 and 1999 an estimated three million whales were killed by the whaling industry. Barnacles mooch off of whales in a commensal relationship—hitching a ride on their backs. The barnacles don’t harm the whale but take advantage of the moving home that brings meals directly to them.
To learn the age of living whales researchers have turned to some surprising parts of the animal—earwax and skin cells. Whales gain earwax fairly consistently, adding layers throughout their life like tree rings. This allows researchers to age a whale and simultaneously see what sort of pollutants they are exposed to throughout their lives. Cetaceans lead long lives, but because they are difficult to track and research, the specifics of their life spans are a bit muddled. Most are thought to live at least 20 years, and some species much longer.
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