- Baleen looks like many layers of rectangular plates overlapping each other. At the bottom of each plate is a soft fringe known as baleen hair. They vary in color from white to black, depending on the species of whale it is from.
- Although baleen is also called whalebone, it's not made of bones, but the same material that hair, fingernails and hooves are made out of--keratin.
- Scientists believe toothed whales came first and then baleen whales. It became far easier to swallow many small creatures whole than to chew them up. The oldest fossilized baleen is 15 million years old.
- A baleen whale scoops shoals of krill and seawater into its huge mouth and then presses its tongue against the baleen, squeezing out the water and keeping the krill. Humpback whales first herd the krill together into one group by means of blowing bubbles through their blow-holes.
- Baleen was used for a variety of products back when whaling was legal. It was used for corsets, skirt hoops, carriage whips, piano springs, eyeglass frames and umbrellas.
