Baleen this issue. A whale's baleen plates play the most important role in its filter-feeding process. To feed, a baleen whale opens its mouth widely and scoops in dense shoals of prey (such as krill, copepods, small fish, and sometimes birds that happen to be near the shoals), together with large volumes of water. It then partly shuts its mouth and presses its tongue against its upper jaw, forcing the water to pass out sideways through the baleen, thus sieving out the prey, which it then swallows. People formerly used baleen (usually referred to as "whalebone") for making numerous items where
Baleen whale of baleen whale migrate long distances from high latitude waters during spring and summer months to more tropical waters during winter months. This migration cycle is repeated annually. The gray whale has the longest recorded migration of any mammal, with one traveling from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Baja Peninsula. It is thought that plankton blooms dictate where whales migrate. Many baleen whales feed on the massive plankton blooms that occur in the cold, nutrient rich waters of polar regions during the sunny spring and summer months. Baleen whales generally then migrate to calving grounds in tropical waters during