Digestive system of humpback whales stretching like an accordion. They allow whales to open their mandible to 90 degrees to gulp water and prey. They expel saltwater through the baleen plates, leaving behind krill and plankton. The whale's tongue plays a vital role in filter feeding, as it is used to push the water out of its mouth while keeping the prey trapped in its baleen bristles. As humpback whales do not have teeth, their food is swallowed whole and travels down the esophagus into the preliminary stomach (known as the forestomach) to be ground. Baleen whales have a multi-chambered stomach, divided into three distinct
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