#whales deserve kisses on their noggins

[olive-ridley]

Okie dokie, after having to do meditative breathing after reading an instagram comments section, let’s talk whales!! What is a whale? What is a dolphin? Is a square a rectangle? Am I too pedantic? (yes) Is this important? (definitely not)

So, the group ‘Cetacea’ is named for the Latin word, ‘cetus,’ derived from the Greek word ‘ketos.’ Cetus refers to large sea animals, including whales, as well as the constellation named Cetus, depicting a whale. The group Cetacea, as you can probably derive, are “whales.”

Let’s discuss the parvorders. Mysticetes are our baleen whales (see: humpbacks, blues, greys, fins, etc.), and Odontocetes are our toothed whales (see: orcas, sperm whales, bottlenose dolphins, harbor porpoises). Now, after this last set of parentheses, you might see where the source of the confusion from the questions I asked above is.

For many years, the general populous has been laboring under the misinformation that dolphins are not whales. But never fear, I am here to free them from the shackles of 2010’s Discovery Channel oversimplification. Ok but in all seriousness, let’s talk dolphins. ‘Dolphin’ often refers to species in the family ‘Delphinidae,’ but also to three more families comprising two families of river dolphins and one family of brackish dolphin. Dolphins is a distinctive term within Cetacea to describe several families. Although interestingly, ‘porpoises’ just refers to a single family within Odontocetes. I just learned that!

So, what is a ‘whale?’ If I surveyed people on the street, I think the general answer is that it has to be a huge cetacean. But when the maximum measured length (6.45 m/21.2 ft) of the smallest baleen whale (pygmy right whale) is 3.4 m/11 feet shorter than the maximum measured length (9.8 m/32 ft) of the largest dolphin (orca), that’s maybe not the best definition. Some might refer to baleen, but then how does the sperm whale, who has teeth and is an odontocete, fit?

The answer is, all cetaceans are whales! From vaquita to blue whale, it’s whales all the way down. Colloquially, this is not the definition that most use, but as a formal, scientific definition, this is 100% correct. So, if you are like me, and you see someone posted a beautiful drone video of orcas on instagram to celebrate World Whale Day for the comments to be full of people saying ‘these are dolphins, not whales,’ and not being like ‘holy shit thank you for sharing this beautiful video with us,’ now you too can be burdened by the knowledge that no, all Odontocetes are whales no matter how small! Good luck on fighting the endless fight in comments sections my pupils.

(My sources are the wikipedia articles for cetacea, cetus, toothed whale, baleen whale, dolphin, porpoise, orca, pygmy right whale, and whale. Wikipedia iffy yes yes, but rest assured I knew this info before Wikipedia from a Prophetic Dream/course on marine mammals during my bachelor’s/experience working in fisheries observing after my bachelor’s)