Balaenidae

Balaenidae /bəˈliːnᵻdiː/ is a family of whales of the parvorder Mysticeti that contains two living genera. Historically, it is known as the right whale family, as it was thought to contain only species of right whales. Through most of the 20th Century, however, that became a much-debated (and unresolved) topic amongst the scientific community. Finally, in the early 2000s, science reached a definitive conclusion: the bowhead whale, once commonly known as the Greenland right whale, was not in fact a right whale. The family of Balaenids, therefore, comprises the right whales (genus Eubalaena), and in a genus all to its own, the very closely related bowhead whale (genus Balaena).

Evolutionary History

Baleen whales belong to the monophyletic lineage of Mysticeti order. Mysticeti are large filter-feeding cetacenas that also included of largest animals on earth as well as some of the most critically endangered. Based on morphology and molecular data, four extant family-level clades are recognized within Mysticeti: Balaenidae (bowhead and right whales), Neobalaenidae (pygmy right whales), Eschirichtiidae (gray whales), and Balaenopteridae (rorquals). Phylogenetic relationships of the mysticeti order remain unclear due to legal and logistical challenges. However, recent morphological analysis, support Balaenidae as a monophyletic group that is the sister group to Neobalaenidae.