EnchantedLearning.com ALL ABOUT WHALES!

Whale Glossary

CALF A calf is a baby whale (or other baby cetacean).

CAMOUFLAGE The disguising of a person, animal or thing so that it looks like its surroundings.

CARNIVORE Carnivores are animals that eat meat. They usually have sharp teeth and powerful jaws. The toothed whales are carnivores.

CAUDAL Caudal means toward or at the tail of an animal.

CENOZOIC ERA The "Age of Mammals" (65 million years ago - today), saw the emergence of familiar life forms, humans, the modern look of the continents, and a cooling climate. The Cenozoic followed the Mesozoic Era.

CEPHALOPOD Cephalopods (meaning "head foot") are mollusks with tentacles and a large head. These soft-bodied invertebrates include animals like squid, octopuses, cuttlefish, and the ammonites (extinct). They are fast-moving carnivores that catch prey with their tentacles and poison it with a bite from beak-like jaws. They move with by squirting water through a siphon, a type of jet propulsion. Many also squirt ink to help escape predators.

CETACEANS Cetaceans are an order of marine mammals that include three suborders, including the Odontoceti (toothed whales, dolphins, and porpoises), Mysticeti (baleen whales), and Archaeoceti (extinct whales). There are 75 species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises.

CLADISTICS Cladistics is a method of classifying organisms based on common ancestry and the branching of the evolutionary family tree. Organisms that share common ancestors (and therefore have similar features) are grouped into taxonomic groups called clades. Cladistics can also be used to predict properties of yet-to-be discovered organisms.

CLADOGRAM Cladograms are branching diagrams that depict species divergence from common ancestors. They show the distribution and origins of shared characteristics. Cladograms are testable hypotheses of phylogenetic relationships.

CLASS In classification, a class is a group of related or similar organisms. A class contains one or more orders. A group of similar classes forms a phylum.

COMMENSALISM Commensalism is a situation in which two organisms are associated in a relationship in which one benefits from the relationship and the other is not affected much. The two animals are called commensals. The shark and the pilot fish (and remora) are commensals - the pilot fish benefits much more than the shark. Another example is bromeliads (plants living on trees in rainforests) and frogs; the frogs get shelter and water from the bromeliad but the bromeliad is unaffected. Commensalism is a type of symbiosis.

CONSUMER A consumer is a living thing that eats other living things to survive. It cannot make its own food (unlike most plants, which are producers). Primary consumers eat producers, secondary consumers eat primary consumers, and so on. There are always many more primary consumers than secondary consumers, etc.

CONTINENTAL DRIFT Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents. The land masses are hunks of Earth's crust that float on the molten core.

CONTINENTAL SHELF The continental shelf is the part of the ocean floor next to each of the continents. The sea floor slopes gradually from the continent to a depth of about 65 feet (200 m). Beyond the continental shelf the sea floor drops steeply

CONVERGENT EVOLUTION Convergent evolution is when a trait develops independently in two or more groups of organisms. For example, the wings of Pterodactyls, birds, and bats.

COPEPODS Copepods are miniscule crustaceans (related to shrimp) that are eaten by many baleen whales and many other animals. They are the biggest source of protein in the oceans, a major constituent of plankton, and are found in all of the oceans and in many bodies of fresh water.

COUNTERSHADING Countershading is a type of body coloration that sharks, some whales, and some other animals have in which the top and bottom sides are colored differently, serving to camouflage the animal from multiple perspectives. In sharks, the top is much darker than the belly. When the shark is viewed from above, its dark top surface blends into the dark ocean depths or ocean floor; when viewed from below, the light-colored belly blends in with the light above. This helps the shark hunt in a stealthy manner, enabling it to sneak up on prey undetected.

COW A cow is an adult female whale.

CRETACEOUS PERIOD Flowering plants appeared and dinosaurs were at their height during the Cretaceous period, 146-65 million years ago. There was a mass extinction (the K-T mass extinction) at the end of the Cretaceous, marking the end of the dinosaurs and many other species.

CRUSTACEANS Crustaceans are mostly marine animals (invertebrates) that have an exoskeleton and jointed legs. They are arthropods. Copepods, barnacles, amphipods, isopods, lobsters, crabs, shrimp, and crayfish are crustaceans.

CUVIER'S BEAKED WHALE Cuvier's Beaked Whale (Ziphius cavirostris ) is a toothed whale that is about 23 ft (7 m) long. It has a single pair of teeth that protrude from the tip of the lower jaw; these teeth point forward. Like all beaked whales, this is a deepwater species; dives of up to 40 minutes have been recorded. This whale feeds mostly on squid, but also eats deepwater fish. Small pods of up to 15 whales live and migrate as a group. There is no definite breeding season; calves are born at any time of the year. This species was named by Linnaeus in 1758.

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