Balaenidae[1] Temporal range: Miocene to present
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Montage of two extant balaenids, Balaena mysticetus (right) and Eubalaena australis (left) | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Infraorder: | Cetacea |
Parvorder: | Mysticeti |
Family: | Balaenidae Gray, 1821 |
Type genus | |
Balaena Linnaeus, 1758
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Genera | |
Balaena |
Balaenidae (/bəˈlɛnɪdeɪ, -diː/) is a family of whales of the parvorder Mysticeti (baleen whales) that contains mostly fossil taxa and two living genera: the right whale (genus Eubalaena), and the closely related bowhead whale (genus Balaena).[3][4]
Although Rice believed that all right whales belong with the bowhead in the genus Balaena, recent genetic analysis have recognized three separate right whale species, in the genus Eubalaena: in the North Atlantic (E. glacialis); in the North Atlantic (E. japonica); and in the Southern Hemisphere (E. australis).
The study by Churchill (2007) now has provided the evidence to conclude that the three living right whale species do comprise a phylogenetic lineage distinct from the bowhead and are rightly classified into a separate genus.