Why are the whales the species with the biggest testicles in the animal kingdom? Why can it be said that whales are giant water filtering machines? What are the formations similar to callosities the whales have on the upper part of their bodies?<\/p>\n
Know a series of curious data on these mammals, giants of the sea that every year arrive in June to the coast of the Peninsula of Vald\u00e9s to stay until the very end of spring<\/a>. There they will mate and you will be able to see how the calves, born in previous years and perfectly identified by the investigators for the study of the population, are getting on.<\/p>\n The Right Whales<\/a> have\u00a0an immense mouth, caused by an extremely arched superior jaw, inside\u00a0which there are some extremely long beards. These beards are bigger\u00a0than a tall person: an adult could fit, standing with his\/her arms\u00a0spread out, inside the mouth of a whale.<\/p>\n In the waters of the Peninsula\u00a0Vald\u00e9s one can watch for hours<\/a> on end how the whales\u00a0swim and feed continuously, absorbing tons of water.<\/p>\n These callosities are covered by thousands of crustaceans known\u00a0as “Whale lice”, or more properly called crustaceans.<\/p>\n These crustaceans are born, grow, reproduce and die on the body\u00a0of the whales. They are crustacean parasites. They are located on\u00a0every part of the body where they are protected from the currents.<\/p>\n Bibliographical source: Institute of Conservation of Whales Translated into English by Geoffrey Astbury.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Did you know that the whales don’t form couples but mating groups? Why are the whales the species with the biggest testicles in the animal kingdom? Why can it be said that whales are giant water filtering machines? What are the formations similar to callosities the whales have on the upper part of their bodies?… Read on<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,36],"tags":[66],"class_list":{"0":"post-1949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eco-patagonia","8":"category-puertomadryn","9":"tag-especies-en-peligro"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1949"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15949,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949\/revisions\/15949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The whales and their “Families”<\/h2>\n
![\"Right](\"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/images\/pmy_ballena9.jpg\" "\\"Right")
Contrary to what is believed if one bears in mind the interwoven\u00a0unity of the mother and their offspring, the whales<\/a>\u00a0don’t form steady family groups. Their system of mating is promiscuous<\/b>,\u00a0they form sexual groups that can be observed very well in the Vald\u00e9s\u00a0Peninsula<\/a>, in which there is a female and several males. The\u00a0males compete among them to fecundate the female.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/images\/madryn_ballena01.jpg\")
This competition is the reason for the peculiar characteristic\u00a0of this species: the size of the testicles of the male individuals.\u00a0They are the biggest in relation to their corporal weight in the\u00a0whole Animal Kingdom. It happens that, since several males compete\u00a0in a sexual intercourse group, the one with more chances of fertilizing\u00a0the only ovum of the female will be the male that produces a bigger\u00a0quantity of sperm. It is a peculiar case of intrasexual competition\u00a0called “spermatic competition.”<\/strong><\/p>\nTo filter to eat<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"\/images\/madryn_colaballena.jpg\")
The whales swallow tons of sea water, then close their mouth and\u00a0draw all the water from the mouth, filtering it with the beards.\u00a0Large quantities of food, such as plankton and other microorganisms,\u00a0remain trapped in the “beard”, and are withdrawn by their\u00a0huge tongue.<\/p>\nCallosities on the back?<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"\/images\/pmy_ballena6.jpg\")
One way of recognizing a Right Whale is by noting the presence\u00a0of certain characteristic callosities on the upper part of its body\u00a0and at the sides of the head.<\/p>\n
\n(Instituto de Conservaci\u00f3n de Ballenas<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n