What is the whale's baleen?
Baleen whales (systematic name Mysticeti), additionally acknowledged as whalebone whales, are a parvorder of carnivorous marine mammals of the infraorder Cetacea (whales, dolphins and porpoises) which use keratinaceous baleen plates (or "whalebone") of their mouths to sieve planktonic creatures from the water. Mysticeti contains the families Balaenidae (proper and bowhead whales), Balaenopteridae (rorquals and the grey whale), and Cetotheriidae (the pygmy proper whale). There are presently 16 species of baleen whales. While cetaceans had been traditionally idea to have descended from mesonychids, molecular proof as an alternative helps them as a clade of even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla). Baleen whales break up from toothed whales (Odontoceti) round 34 million years ago.
