Taxa

Balaenopteridae

Family

Citation Formats

General Reference

Nature Atlas. "Balaenopteridae." Accessed September 8, 2026. https://nature.interactiveatlas.org/taxa/family-balaenopteridae.

APA Style

Nature Atlas. (n.d.). Balaenopteridae. Retrieved September 8, 2026, from https://nature.interactiveatlas.org/taxa/family-balaenopteridae

BibTeX

@misc{natureatlas-balaenopteridae,
  author = {Nature Atlas},
  title = {Balaenopteridae},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://nature.interactiveatlas.org/taxa/family-balaenopteridae},
  note = {Accessed September 8, 2026}
}

The rorquals: baleen whales with pleated throat grooves that expand enormously during lunge-feeding, allowing an enormous volume of water and prey to be engulfed in a single mouthful. Balaenopteridae includes the blue whale and the humpback whale.

Facts

Disputed

Member Species/Taxa Count

9 1

Approximate described-species (or, for a genus, described-taxon) count; continually revised as species are newly described, reclassified or synonymized.

Taxonomic Rank

Family 1

Scientific Name

Balaenopteridae 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Child Taxon Of

Cetacea

Source Catalogue of Life

Sources

1. Catalogue of Life

Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of LifeView the Source

Comments (0)

No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.

Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)

No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.

Switch Atlas

The Inner World

The Civil World

The Natural World