Cetacea toothed whales and two in baleen whales. The nostrils are located on top of the head above the eyes so that the rest of the body can remain submerged while surfacing for air. The back of the skull is significantly shortened and deformed. By shifting the nostrils to the top of the head, the nasal passages extend perpendicularly through the skull. The teeth or baleen in the upper jaw sit exclusively on the maxilla. The braincase is concentrated through the nasal passage to the front and is correspondingly higher, with individual cranial bones that overlap. In toothed whales, connective tissue
Spade-toothed whale small fish. The young probably become independent of their mothers at about one year of age, as is the case in most whales. The population status of the spade-toothed whale is entirely unknown, but it is unlikely to be abundant. The spade-toothed whale is covered by the Memorandum of Understanding for the Conservation of Cetaceans and Their Habitats in the Pacific Islands Region (Pacific Cetaceans MOU). The sex of the 20th-century specimens is not known. By recovering or failing to recover DNA sequences of the Y chromosome, it could, in theory, be resolved. Little material is shared between the Pitt