Source: http://www.wissen.de, http://www.das-tierlexikon.de/wale.htm

Today whales and dolphins belong to the most threatened mammals on earth. The human being is responsible for this situation because for a long time, he considered those ocean giants only under the point of view of an almost inexhaustible income source which could be exploited recklessly. For years these lovely animals were hunted and slaughtered. Many whale-types are threatened to be extinct by the whale hunt which is still conducted by some countries.

Whales belong to the mammals which have been adapting to water-life secondarily. They have a torpedo-shaped, stream-lined body; the animal is moved forward with the help of a horizontal, half-moon shaped tail fluke which is located at the end of the body. The front-limbs are designed like a fin; the back limbs are missing. The pelvis belt has been reduced to 2 bones which are loosely lying in the meat. The hair has been reduced only to the touch bristles of the Bartenwale. On the back side, there is frequently a back fin (similar to the grease fin of the fish). The up to 50 cm strong fatty tissue of the lower part of the skin serves as heat protection and in order to improve buoyancy. Whales don't breathe automatically but consciously.

The sense of smell has gone completely lost, the eyes are weak, the sense of hearing is good, however the outer ears are missing. The brain of the whales resembles that of the human being. Parts of the large brain rind are even stronger grinded and are probably responsible for the large learning capacity of the whales. After a pregnancy of 10 to 13 months, a baby whale is born usually with the tail coming out first. During the suction act, the mother whale splashes the greasy milk from its tits, which are located at the bottom part of the body, into the mouth hole of the baby. Whales are usually living in social groups, in so-called schools. The whales have developed from land animals which were closely related to the ancient hoof animals. Today two categories of whales can be distinguished: the baleen whales and the toothed whales. The former ones are mainly eating animal plankton, the latter ones prefer fish and calamares. About 90 different whale types are living in the oceans and rivers today, among them 80 toothed whales and 10 baleen whales. The largest whale-type of all is a baleen whale, the Blue Whale. It gets up to 30 meters long and over 120 tons heavy which corresponds to the weight of 25 elephants! It is the biggest animal living on earth today. The biggest toothed whale is the sperm whale. It gets up to 20 meters long and can dive up to 3000 meters deep. No other whale reaches such depths. The sperm whale catches its prey there, the giant squid.

By up and down batting of the horizontal tail flukes whose areas are always in an inclined position to the lengths axis of the whale, the whales are moving on. For short distances, they can reach speeds up to 40 or 50 km/h. However, the average speed is about 14 to 24 km/h. Some dolphins can reach up to 27 km/h also on longer distances.