24 Whale Facts For Kids

1. Whale is the common name for a group of marine mammals that live their entire lives in an aquatic environment.
2. Whales are members of the Cetacea infraorder in the Artiodactyla order.
3. Whales are not fish; they are mammals, and they inhale and exhale air by surfacing and using their blowhole.
4. Whales are extremely intelligent and can cooperate, learn, grieve, scheme, and teach with one another.
5. Many whale species are social and live in groups known as pods.
6. The distribution range for whales includes all seas and ocean worldwide.
7. Whales thrive in the cold Arctic Ocean to the warm Indian Ocean.
8. There are an estimated 1.5 million whales living in seas and oceans around the world.
9. Whales are carnivorous, feeding only on meat, with some being piscivorous due to their diet consisting only of fish.
10. The largest toothed predator on Earth is the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus).
11. There are 94 whale species (dolphins, porpoises, and whales) living worldwide.
12. Whales belong to one of two groups, baleen whales or toothed whales.
13. Baleen whales have baleen plates in their mouth for filter feeding.
14. Toothed whales have teeth in their mouth used for capture and chewing up prey.
15. The body length range for all whale species is between 8.5 and 79 feet.
16. The bodyweight range for all whale species is between 300 and 290,000 pounds.
17. The lifespan range for all whale species is between 10 and 90 years.
18. The largest whale species is the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) with a weight as high as 290,000 pounds.
19. The smallest whale species is the dwarf sperm whale (Kogia sima) with a weight as low as 300 pounds.
20. The largest animal ever known to exist is the blue whale, with the longest recorded blue whale reaching 100 feet.
21. Whaling is the human process of hunting and killing whales for food and other materials.
22. Whaling in the 18th and 19th century vastly depleted many whale species populations.
23. One of the most recognizable whales is the killer whale (Orcinus orca), with their distinct black and white bodies.
24. Killer whales became popular from the 1993 film Free Willy and the 2013 documentary Blackfish.

Whale Pictures

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the below images will be helpful for your research on whales. Below are six pictures of various whale species. These pictures should help you better understand the different types of whales found around the world.

---