What Is The Difference Between A Whale And A Dolphin

Dolphins have teeth but not the whales.

Whales on the other hand have tiny relative to their body size dorsal fins which are found near the tail fin. Body sizes are much larger in whales than dolphins. Dolphins are toothed whales and the largest dolphin is the orca generally mistaken for a whale due to its name killer whale. A few dolphin species have small dorsal fins.

Most dolphin species have well defined dorsal fins which are used for stability when swimming. A related family to dolphins are porpoises. Some classification systems consider anything over 9 feet as a whale which can lead to confusion. Whales tend to be between 11 and 110 feet long.

The main difference between them is that baleen whales have baleen and two blow holes while toothed whales have teeth and one blow hole. Being smaller dolphins are more agile and their bodies are better adapted to fast swimming. What is the difference between dolphin and whale. This is why there are six species of whale that are actually dolphins genetically.

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The term whale is used as a way to distinguish size among species with cetaceans longer than about nine feet considered whales and those less than nine feet long considered to be dolphins and porpoises. Dolphins are between 4 and 35 feet long. While dolphins and porpoises are in the same order and suborder as whales they generally aren t given a name that includes the word whale.