The Wonderful World of Whales

We whales are mysterious beings and one of the oldest aquatic mammals in our world. Although we live in the oceans, 50 million years ago, our ancestors lived on land. Today, we are living almost everywhere in the world’s oceans, from the North to the South Pole. We have a lot of human-like features - we breathe air, have a little hair, are warm-blooded, and feed our babies with milk. There are two main families: baleen and toothed whales. Baleen whales are generally huge, especially the great blue whale, considered the biggest animal in the world. The biggest of the toothed whale family are my cousins, the sperm whales. They are known for having the largest brain in the world. Beluga whales, the only white-colored whales, thus also known as white whales, live in the Arctic Ocean. They live and migrate in pods. Another talent they have is being able to swim backward. More and more studies prove that whales are essential to the marine ecosphere and help maintain our earth’s health. We are some of the most intelligent and compassionate inhabitants of the ocean. We help to mitigate climate change by boosting the production of phytoplankton that absorb 40% of the CO2 in the air and release 50% of the oxygen found in our atmosphere.