EVERY KNOW WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MYSTICETI AND ODONTOCETI??
The cetaceans—whales, dolphins, and porpoises—are the most highly evolved, fully aquatic marine mammals, and make up 2 percent of the 4,600 living mammal species.
Dolphins belong to the suborder Odontoceti, or “toothed” cetaceans. Toothed whales are divided into ten families grouped into Three “superfamilies”: Delphinoidea, or oceanic dolphins, porpoises, and monodontids such as the beluga whale; Ziphoidea, or beaked whales; and Physeteroidea, or sperm, pygmy sperm, and dwarf sperm whales.
The other suborder of cetaceans, Mysticeti, comprises eleven species of whales which have baleen plates instead of teeth.
Toothed whales also differ from baleen whales in having a single (instead of a double) blowhole, a highly specialized echolocation system, and a pronounced forehead, or melon.
Toothed whales make up the vast majority of cetaceans. Approximately seventy one diverse species range from the relatively tiny vaquita, or Gulf of California harbor porpoise, which weighs in at about 120 pounds (about 50 kg) and is roughly 5 feet (about 1.5 m) long, to the well-known bottlenose dolphin, white beluga whale, and magnificent killer whale (the largest dolphin) on up to the largest toothed whale, the sperm whale, which can reach 55 feet (18 m) in length. The terms porpoise, whale, and dolphin are often used interchangeably, but size (specifi cally length) is the criterion anatomists have generally used to apply the common name whale.
Porpoises, members of the family Phocoenidae, differ from dolphins in several characteristics. Typically smaller, they also lack a pronounced rostrum (beak) and have shorter, spade-shaped teeth as opposed to dolphins’ more conical, pointy teeth.
Illustration by John Norton
Editor’s Note: A recently re-discovered family of mysticeti a described: Cethoteriidae (pygmy right whale)
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