| Whalebone
is not really bone at all, but is made of keratin a protein
material that also makes up skin, hair, hooves and horns.
Whalebone is only found in baleen (or whalebone) whales, baleen
being another name for whalebone. Here is the front portion of a
right whale skull with the baleen plates hanging from it. There
are hundreds of individual plates arranged end on the left and
right of the whale. The long white curved structure at the top of
the picture is part of the whale skull comparable to the skull
above your palate. In baleen whales it is greatly elongated and
projects forwards with the baleen plates hanging from it like two
sides of an approximate triangle.
The function of this large extraordinary
structure, that these whales have instead of teeth, is to act as a
filter for thousands - millions, of tiny planktonic animals that
these whales feed on. Different whales have differently sized
baleen plates and different spaces between them, this enables them
to catch different sizes of food and so the whales can live live
together without all competing directly. |
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