Do whales have hair?

Question

Do whales have hair? cus I heard that they were mammals and apparantly one of the signs a mammal is a mamal is that it has hair

Answer 1

Mammals have hair, but that's not the only reason they're classified as mammals. Check this out:

Answer 2

yes i am pretty sure they do actually.

Answer 3

One of the qualifications to be a mammal-hair.

Have you ever seen a turkey beard? That is also a form of hair.

Learned both in college Biology.

Answer 4

Some whales do have hair. For example, the right whale has hairs along the chin and upper jaw; the bowhead whale has hair follicles on the snout, lips, and chin, and behind the blowhole; and young whales of some species have hairs around their snout.  The hair may serve as tactile organs in a social or sexual context. Land mammals have hair because it provides insulation so they can maintain a stable body-core temperature (a coat of hair or fur keeps them warm).But since whales live in the water, hair or fur would drag them down as they swam (imagine trying to go swimming with a fur coat on- you wouldn't go very fast!). So whales solve the problem of maintaining a stable body-core temperature (as all warm-blooded creatures must) with a thick layer of blubber (fat) around their body. Hairs on whales are presumably vestigial characters in the evolution of Cetaceans (in other words, hairs are structures that performed a useful function earlier in the evolution of whales- before they became aquatic species).

Answer 5

Whales can have hair, but do not necessarily. While they are lacking hair along their bodies, they can have some bristly hair on the face. But, many species don't.

Having hair is a mammalian trait, but whales & dolphins have lost this trait. It's an ancestral character in them. Similarly, having a tail is a chordate trait and humans (for the most part) don't have tails. That doesn't mean we're not chordates, it just means that we evolved from ancestors with tails and have since lost this trait.

Answer 6

they eat thruogh  hair-like teeth...haha there is a spell checker....

Answer 7

Yes. They do! For more info see: http://whale.wheelock.edu/archives/ask97...

I hope this helps! Have a great day.

Answer 8

yeah they do have hair. very fine and sparse but yeah

Answer 9

no...whales r the only known mammal that r short of hairs...

they have a special coating around their body, that is called 'blubber', that acts as insulator and keep them warm

Answer 10

because they cant wax/shave. duhh

Answer 11

There are five basic characteristics for mammals (but there are exceptions):

- Giving live birth to young. (Platypus & echidnas are mammals but lay eggs.)

- Breathe air with lungs

- Nurse young with milk

- Warm Blooded

- Have hair

(There are lots of other morphological ones too, these are just the simple easy to remember ones.)

Even whales and dolphins have hair, even though you can't see it. Dolphins and other toothed whales have hair when they're fetuses and it exists even after they're born. Some whales have chinny whiskers through their whole lives. Other baleen whales have them as calves inside little dimples, especially on their snouts (possibly to aid with nursing).

This is a very big photo, but you can see the hairs on this gray whale calf:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49211868@N0...

Answer 12

No