Ellerman & Morrison-Scott 1951 Rhachianectidae Weber 1904 Rorquals (/ˈrɔːrkwəlz/) are the largest group of baleen whales, comprising the family Balaenopteridae, which contains nine extant species in two genera.

For example, humpback whales have a fluid social structure, often engaging behavioral practices in a pod, other times being solitary.

[7] Rice's whale has the smallest distribution of rorquals and possibly baleen whales in general, being endemic to a small portion of the Gulf of Mexico west of the Florida peninsula and south of Alabama and the Florida panhandle, although it likely formerly had a much wider distribution in the Gulf.

(In the northern hemisphere, where the continents distort weather patterns and ocean currents, these movements are less obvious, although still present.)

[11] Rorquals have a number of anatomical features that enable them to do this, including bilaterally separate mandibles, throat pleats that can expand to huge size, and a unique sensory organ consisting of a bundle of mechanoreceptors that helps their brains to coordinate the engulfment action.

[13] In fact, they give rorquals the ability to open their mouths so wide that they would be capable of taking in water at volumes greater than their own sizes.

[13] According to Potvin and Goldbogen, lunge feeding in rorquals represents the largest biomechanical event on Earth.