WHALES
BY:Angela K.
Gray whales don't have any teeth, so they have the baleen plates on each side of the upper jaw. They eat small fish and shellfish .
Gray whales may reach a length of 47 to 50 feet. Females are slightly larger than males. Gray whales have thick bodies and have a slim, triangle shaped head.
People have been killing gray whales for hundreds of years. They kill whales for food and tools, so gray whales almost gone.
A gray baby whale is called a calf. A newborn calf is 15 to 16.5 feet(4.6 to 5 meters) long and is gray. As it grows older, the gray color becomes spotted.
At the end of winter, the calf is ready to make its first migration to the feeding grounds. It is still nursing, so it swims close to its mother.
Killer whales and large sharks prey on gray whales. Female gray whales will protect their calves from predators using their size and weight.
Humpacks live in every ocean, but they are found in differnt areas at differnt times of the the year. They migrate up to 1,000 miles (11, 26, 5km) each year!In summer, they live in cold waters near the north of south poles, where they feed.
Baleen whales have no teeth. Instead, they have dreds in the mouth. Whales use these plates to strain out food from the water. The plates are called baleen or whale bone and consist of the same material as human fingernails.
Some whales die after stranding themselves on a beach. In some cases, a whale swims ashore alone. In other instances, an entire school of whales may become stranded .
Most whales are enormous. The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived. Blue whales can grow up to 100feet (30 meters) long and weigh over 150 short tons (135 metric tons), but some kinds of whales are smaller.