Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of several baleen whales of the family Balaenopteridae having longitudinal grooves on the throat and a small, pointed dorsal fin, and including the blue whale and the humpback whale.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A finner-whale of the genus Balænoptera, having short flippers, a dorsal fin, and the throat plicated.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) A very large North Atlantic whalebone whale (
Physalus antiquorum , orBalænoptera physalus ). It has a dorsal fin, and strong longitudinal folds on the throat and belly. Called alsorazorback .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any
whale withlongitudinal skin folds running from below the mouth to thenavel , allowing the capacity of the mouth to expand greatly when feeding.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of several baleen whales of the family Balaenopteridae having longitudinal grooves on the throat and a small pointed dorsal fin
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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When this is combined with the fact that some of the prey that rorquals depend upon, such as krill, are declining, it becomes clear why certain rorqual populations are struggling to recover from the days of commercial whaling.
Archive 2006-10-01 Darren Naish 2006
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When this is combined with the fact that some of the prey that rorquals depend upon, such as krill, are declining, it becomes clear why certain rorqual populations are struggling to recover from the days of commercial whaling.
Lunging is expensive, jaws can be noisy, and what’s with the asymmetry? Rorquals part III Darren Naish 2006
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More significant was the recognition by Larsen that new technologies (particularly the recently invented grenade harpoon gun) would allow hunting of the more difficult but more common rorqual whales (Blue, Fin, Humpback, Sei and Minke Whales) in the Southern Ocean.
Exploration of the Antarctic in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century 2009
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A rorqual may engulf nearly 70% of its total body weight in water and prey during this action, which in an adult blue whale amounts to about 70 tons (Pivorunas 1979).
From cigar to elongated, bloated tadpole: rorquals part II Darren Naish 2006
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* Most books on whales state that there are five rorqual species.
A 6 ton model, and a baby that puts on 90 kg a day: rorquals part I Darren Naish 2006
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Whales include migratory humpback Megaptera novaeangliae (VU) and occasional blue Balaenoptera musculus (EN), rorqual Balaenoptera physalis, sperm Physeter macrocephalus (VU), Bryde's Baleanoptera edeni, killer Orcinus orca, false killer Pseudorca crassidens, pygmy killer Feresa attenuata, Cuvier's beaked Ziphius cavirostris, beaked Mesoplodon sp., shortfin pilot Globicephala macrorhynchus and melon-headed Peponocephala electra whales.
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When a rorqual lunges, delicate timing is needed, otherwise the buccal pouch will rapidly fill with seawater and not with prey.
From cigar to elongated, bloated tadpole: rorquals part II Darren Naish 2006
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Occasionally rorqual skulls have been discovered in which the long lower jaws have been stuck wedged inside various of the skull openings and with their tips protruding like tusks.
From cigar to elongated, bloated tadpole: rorquals part II Darren Naish 2006
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As it swam around, gradually tiring, Williamson approached it in the water and took his photos [the accompanying image, showing a young rorqual that beached in Florida in 2002, is borrowed from VisitGulf. com].
A 6 ton model, and a baby that puts on 90 kg a day: rorquals part I Darren Naish 2006
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Once a mass of prey is engulfed, a rorqual then has to squeeze the water out through its baleen plates while at the same time retaining the prey.
From cigar to elongated, bloated tadpole: rorquals part II Darren Naish 2006
bilby commented on the word rorqual
Hmmmm, no cetaceans list?
August 12, 2008
reesetee commented on the word rorqual
Oh, there must be one.
August 12, 2008
yarb commented on the word rorqual
Just remember, would-be cetacean-list-makers: Moby-Dick is the only valid source of cetacean citations.
August 12, 2008
she commented on the word rorqual
I'm partial to this list: 1) Join Wordie. 2) List exactly two whale-words.
3) Revel in satisfaction. Oh yes.
August 12, 2008
jaime_d commented on the word rorqual
". . .his sailors had torn off a giant rorqual's jaw. . " Gilbert Adair translation of Georges Perec's La Disparition
August 11, 2010