Cetotheres are a clade of baleen whales. On Earth, they were highly common and diverse, thriving as

Cetotheres are a clade of baleen whales. On Earth, they were highly common and diverse, thriving as 3-5 meter filter feeders in warm shallow seas. As the climate of Earth cooled and the food of baleen whales became concentrated, rorquals became much more successful, as larger size enabled them to travel farther and their feeding method allowed them to harvest more food. Cetotheres, aside from the pygmy right whale, became extinct as being large became much more advantageous.In Kaimere, where the climate is still warm, cetotheres remained successful. Rorquals such as the humpback and sun whale migrate to the South Pole during the summer months to take advantage of the slight boom in krill, while cetotheres are resident in the inland sea year-round. There are two clades of cetothere in the known world: the top-feeders and bottom-feeders.The top-feeders include three species: the bilgetu, the bilkata, and the bilur (the common whale in the trade language). These animals all live in small pods of 3-12 animals, skim-feeding on the bountiful photosynthetic plankton soups that are common in the vast and shallow inland sea. These masses of plankton, and therefore the top-feeders themselves, are especially common in the warmer waters to the north, in the Sea of the Dancing Sun where the Kentarim live, hence my use of Kentarim names in this post. The bilur, or common whale, comes north for these bounties, and migrate to the southern waters of the inland sea in vast groups of up to a thousand animals to partake in the summer glut of deep-sea plankton brought by upwells into the channel between the Free-States and Qajar. The bottom feeders resemble the grey whale of Earth, although this is more due to convergent diets than close relation. Like they grey whale, the bilyuk and bilyukiko swim on their side and stir up the sediment on the bottom. As the inland sea is, for the most part, 30-120 feet deep, the feeding grounds of the bottom-feeders consists of the entire region, while grey whales must stick to the coasts. Because of this expanse of feeding grounds, these two whales are extremely common. The bilyuk, larger of the two, also has populations beyond the inland sea, trailing up the marine coasts to east, west, and along the southern Pakardiant coast, although these animals migrate back to the inland sea to mate and calve. This animal is notoriously combative, using their 10-foot upper jaw, lined with sharp barnacles, to ram predators such as mosasaurs, sharks, and orcas. In addition to records of males ganging up to kill these predators, they also do so when whalers take them or other cetaceans. They, alongside humpbacks, are the ‘protector whales’, and will come to the aid of other marine mammals, or just attack predators that they know to be significant threats. -- source link

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