baleen whale
nounDefinition of baleen whale
: any of a suborder (Mysticeti) of usually large whales typically of colder waters that lack teeth but have baleen plates in the upper jaw which are used to filter chiefly small crustaceans (such as krill) out of large quantities of seawater — see fin whale, gray whale, humpback whale, right whale, rorqual — compare toothed whale
Examples of baleen whale in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
And there is fossil evidence megalodons used this tactic to stun their favorite meal — baleen whales. — Jamie Seidel, Fox News, "Prehistoric survivor? How we know the 'Meg' is dead," 15 Aug. 2018 The North Atlantic right whale is a baleen whale that uses a filter-feeder system to consume krill. — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, "The U.S. Navy Is Limiting Noisier Activities to Protect an Endangered Whale," 15 Nov. 2018 Describing himself as a fossil-finder rather than a whale-hugger, the Smithsonian Institution paleontologist travels the world to find out how, when and why baleen whales became the giants of the ocean. — Karin Altenberg, WSJ, "What to Give: Nature Books," 15 Nov. 2018 Their only food source would be the large baleen whales. — Jamie Seidel, Fox News, "Prehistoric survivor? How we know the 'Meg' is dead," 15 Aug. 2018 Only one baleen whale species, a humpback, was observed grieving. — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, "Study Suggests Dolphins and Some Whales Grieve Their Dead," 20 June 2018 For years, scientists have disagreed about which species of baleen whale came first, and how the toothless species were related. — Author: Karen Weintraub, Anchorage Daily News, "Baleen whales intermingled as they evolved, and share DNA with distant cousins," 7 Apr. 2018 In the popular 2003 animated film Finding Nemo, two fish gulped down by a baleen whale escape when the whale shoots them out on a jet of water. — Claire Eamer, Smithsonian, "How Children’s Books Reveal Our Evolving Relationship With Whales," 27 Mar. 2018 Other filter-feeding baleen whales like blue, fin and minke whales produce much simpler songs that are more or less the same every year. — Will Dunham, Anchorage Daily News, "Arctic jazz: Bowhead whales have an amazingly diverse songbook," 4 Apr. 2018These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'baleen whale.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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