WF#19 How Whales Feed: Part Two: Baleen Whales - Lunge Feeding

Rorquals, (superfamily Balaenopteraidea), including blues, humpbacks, fins, and minke whales, all feed using a technique called lunge feeding. They approach their prey, most often from below, then with a sudden burst of great speed, they lunge at their prey with their mouth open and engulf it. Humpbacks actually have an additional technique they use to improve upon this called "bubble net lunge feeding"... to be continued...

Photo credit: The Guardian

Whales normally approach their prey from below so that they can trap it at the surface, like this one has done. This humpback's mouth is full of of prey and water - you can see his stretchy throat grooves are fully extended to allow him to hold in as much as possible (I'll do a post on those fascinating throat grooves later - there's a lot of interesting science going on there!). What he would do next in this picture is close his mouth, lock his jaws and move his tongue up to force the water through his baleen plates and out of his mouth, leaving only the prey inside for him to eat. Success!

WF#18 How Whales Feed: Part One: Baleen Whales - Filter Feeding

Baleen whales (order mysticeti) have baleen in place of teeth, and so they feed by the filter-feeding method instead.

Photocredit: Wikipedia

Baleen, which looks like a giant comb, is used to filter food out of mouthfuls of prey-rich water

Photo credit: Smithsonian Museum of Natural History