Minke Whales And Whale Watching In The British Isles

The minke whale is a baleen whale. A whale with no teeth, but instead a filtering mechanism made up of baleen plates which strain small prey from large mouthfuls of water engulfed by the whale. The plates of baleen hang down from the whale’s upper jaw. Pleats or grooves in the whale’s throat extend to enable it to gulp in an enormous quantity of water and prey. The water is then strained through the plates of bristly baleen, trapping the prey in its mouth.