Cetacean Genera

This group gathers Mammal Genera subcategory members belonging to the order Cetacea, the whales, dolphins and porpoises, fully aquatic mammals descended from a land-dwelling artiodactyl ancestor, breathing through a blowhole atop the head rather than through the nose or mouth. It spans the baleen whales, represented here by the rorqual genus Balaenoptera and the humpback whale's own genus Megaptera, which filter-feed on small schooling prey rather than hunt individual animals, and the toothed whales, a much larger group at genus level in this subcategory: the oceanic dolphins across more than a dozen genera including Tursiops, Delphinus, Orcinus (the orca) and Globicephala (the pilot whales), the porpoises of genus Phocoena, the sperm whale's own genus Physeter, and the narwhal and beluga of the genera Monodon and Delphinapterus, both Arctic specialists.