Open Access

Akito Kawamura

• In order to elucidate what species among so many kind of marine organisms are likely to be consmed Iargely by the balaenopterid whales, the existing evidence on the food habits of baleen whales is reviewed. To meet with this primary purpose the report was mainly focussed on to describe qualitative aspects of food species having been known to date from the notable whaling grounds over the world rather than documenting quantitative subjects. One of interesting facts noticed throughout the contribution was that there exists fairly intense diversity in the assembly of food species composition by regions such as; northern hemisphere vs. southern hemisphere, Pacific region vs. Atlantic region, inshore waters vs. offshore waters, embayed waters vs. open waters, where the former usually shows more diversed complexity than the latter. The fact however suggests that although the composition of food species locally varies over the various whaling grounds, the food organisms as taxonomical groups are very similar one another even in locally isolated whaIing grounds when the food organisms and their assemblies are considered by the family or genus basis. In this connection many evidences given in the text may suggest that the balaenopterid whales as a whole may substantially live on quite simply compositioned forage assembly in comparison with tremendous variety of organisms existing in the marine ecosystems. One of important aspects of the baleen whales food must be found in their characteristics of forming dense swarms, schools, and/or aggregations in the shallower enough layers to be fed by the whales. The present and past status of larger baleen whales as the mighty monarch through their evolutional pathways may entirely depend upon the spatial distribution pattern of possible food organisms, i.e. the animal aggregations.