Marine Mammals - Final Flashcards
What are 5 unique characteristics of mammals?
- Hair
- Warm blooded
- Breathe air
- Four chambered heart
- Bear live young (viviporous)
What are 5 unique characteristics unique to marine mammals?
- STREAMLINE body shape
- LIMB modification as flippers
- THERMAL regulation (thick skin, blubber, large size)
- Modified RESPIRATORY system
- OSMOTIC adaptations
- ECHOLOCATION
Provide 5 characteristics that enhances marine mammals’ ability to thermoregulate.
- LARGE size
- LOW surface to volume ratio
- THICK skin
- BLUBBER
- reduced peripheral CIRCULATION (blubber with few blood vessels)
- Higher METABOLIC rate
Provide 5 additional physical features that indicate convergent evolution has occurred.
- ?
Which 2 suborders fall under the the order CETACEA?
- MYSTECETI
- ODONTOCETI
What are the common names of the two suborders MYSTECETI and ODONTOCETI?
- MYSTECETI: Baleen Whale
- ODONTOCETI: Toothed Whale
How do the suborders Mysteceti (Baleen Whale) and odontoceti (Toothed Whale) differ with respect to TEETH?
- Mysteceti: teeth LACKING
- Odontoceti: teeth PRESENT
How do the suborders Mysteceti and odontoceti differ with respect to BALEEN?
- Mysteceti: baleen plate PRESENT
- Odontoceti: baleen plates ABSENT
How do the suborders Mysteceti and odontoceti differ with respect to NASAL openings?
- Mysteceti: PAIRED external nasal openings
- Odontoceti: SINGLE external nasal opening
How do the suborders Mysteceti and odontoceti differ with respect to STERNUM?
- Mysteceti: relatively SMALL, few ribs, can NOT withstand beaching
- Odontoceti: LONG and robust, CAN withstand beaching
How do the suborders Mysteceti and odontoceti differ with respect to COMMUNICATION?
- Mysteceti: Series of MOANS, SQUEAKS, and SCREAMS
- Odontoceti: WHISTLES and ECHOLOCATION
For the suborder MYSTECETI, what is whale bone?
- BALEEN
What is ECHOLOCATION?
- Rapid sounds, like clicks, into blind areas and notes times to travel to and from an object
Describe migratory patterns of baleen whales.
- HIGHLY migratory
- Move towards high lattitude feeding areas (polar) in summer to low altitude calving areas (tropical) in winter
- Average 3000 - 5000 km migration each way
- Gray whale : 10,000 km migration each way
How do baleen wales feed?
- Filter feeding using comb like baleen plates that grow from the roof of their mouths
- Filters plankton, copeopods, and small fish from sea water
Which 3 families fall under the suborder MYSTECETI?
- Roqual
- Grey whale
- Right whale
Which species belongs to the family ROQUAL (5)?
Fastest?
Largest?
- BLUE whale (RED LISTED), FIN whale (RED LISTED), HUMPBACK whale, MINKE whale, SEI whale (RED LISTED)
- Largest: BLUE whale
- Fastest: SEI whale
What are some distinguishing characteristics of ROQUAL whales (6)?
- UNFUSED neck vertebrate
- LONGITUDINAL GROOVES on throat
- Small pointed DORSAL fin
- PLEATS of skin on throat (unfold when mouth opens for large opening!) (25-100)
- LONG slender body
- Pointed snout
Which species belong to the GREY WHALE family (1)?
- GREY whale (BLUE LISTED)
What are some distinguishing characteristics of GREY whales (4)?
- UNFUSED neck vertebrate
- FEW throat PLEATS (2-4)
- SMALL Dorsal hump followed by a series of bumps
- BOTTOM FORAGERS (amphipods)
What are the white blotches on the body of a GREY whale?
- Parasitic Barnacles
Describe the migration patterns of the GREY whale?
- Migrate from November - early December from north to Baja California,
- Do not feed during breeding season
- February - May, they begin migrating back north
- 10,000km each way
What species belong to the RIGHT whale family (1)?
- North Pacific Right Whale (RED LISTED)
What are some distinguishing characteristics of RIGHT whales (4)?
- NO DORSAL fin
- NO THROAT grooves
- LONG BALEEN PLATES
- HUGE arched JAW
- all 7 neck vertebrae are FUSED
Why are they called RIGHT whales?
- Because whalers thought it was the “right” whale to hunt because it contains a huge amount of oil and baleen
What are the feeding habits of RIGHT whales?
- Large baleen (2.8m long) to catch copepods and krill near surface
- Called SKIMMING
What are distinguishing characteristics of the suborder ODONTOCETI (5)?
- Homodont, unicuspid, monophyodont teeth
- Feed on dish and squid
- Echolocation for hunting prey
- Single nasal opening
- Marked asymmetry of surrounding bones
What families belong to the suborder ODONTOCETI (4)?
- Delphinid (Killer whale RED/BLUE listed)
- Porpoise (Harbour Porpoise BLUE listed)
- Beaked whale (Arch beaked whale BLUE listed)
- Sperm whale (BLUE listed)
Provide a description of a DOLPHIN (size, fin shape, head shape, teeth, body, rostrum shape).
- Small - medium size, sleek and streamlined
- Caudle fin has deep tail NOTCH, Dorsal fin curved
- Prominent RIDGE on top of tail
- Forehead bulges due to “melon” (fatty deposit)
- Beak-like rostrum
Provide a description of a PORPOISE (size, fin shape, head shape, teeth, body, rostrum shape).
- Small, chunky body
- Not as curved dorsal fin, no notch in caudle fin
- Lack well formed beak
- Square-ish head
- Blunt snout
Who are ZIPHIDS?
What are their unique physical features?
- BEAKED whales
- Long narrow snout
- High bulging forehead
- Small, ovate pectoral fin
- Small, sickle-shaped dorsal fin (posterior half of back)
- Pair of grooves on throat (form V pattern)
- Few teeth
Provide 6 unique ways to determine a sperm whale.
- Broad flat rostrum
- Depression in face to accommodate spermaceti organ
- S-shaped blowhole, top left side of head
- No pre or post orbital processes
- Numerous short grooves on throat
- Small narrow lower jaw
What is unique about the head of a sperm whale, and why?
- Depression in head to accommodate the spermaceti organ
- The clear liquid oil hardens when cooled
- Regulates buoyancy allowing for deep dives (3000m) due to density of liquid when cooled
Describe the following terms:
- Breaching
- Spy hopping
- Spouting
- Flipper slapping/waving
- Breaching: cetacean jumping out of water and splashing (signaling, courtship?)
- Spy hopping: use muscular tails to lift head out of the water (to see surroundings)
- Spouting: expelling air from lungs through blowholes and take in fresh air
- Flipper slapping/waving: slapping flipper on surface of water
Define the following terms:
- Podding
- Lobtailing
- Porpoising
- Podding: herding behaviour (breeding season)
- Lobtailing: slap the water with tails
- Porpoising: moving in and out of water with high speed leaps (gain speed momentum, corral fish)
What are the characteristics of the Northeastern Pacific Southern Resident Population of Killer Whales in regards to habitat, feeding style, vocalization, and status?
Habitat: All oceans water from 0 degrees to tropical waters, shallow to open ocean depths, considerable time in brackish water
Feeding style: fish, rely on salmon
Vocalization:
Status: RED LISTED
What are the characteristics of the Northeast Pacific Transient Population of Killer Whales in regards to habitat, feeding style, vocalization, and status?
Habitat: waters less than 5m deep
Feeding style: marine mammals, foraging at intertidal areas at high tide
Vocalization:
Status: RED listed
What are the characteristics of the Northeast Pacific Offshore Population of Killer Whales in regards to habitat, feeding style, vocalization, and status?
Habitat:
Feeding style:
Vocalization:
Status: BLUE listed
Describe the natural history of Norther Right Whales in terms of appearance, feeding, distribution, and status.
Appearance: Upper and lower jaw curved, narrow upper rostrum often covered in hardened patches of skin, black all over except belly which is white, no dorsal fin
Feeding: planktonic organisms
Distribution:
Status: RED listed
