Rorquals

species of mammal

Rorquals () are the largest group of baleen whales, comprising the family Balaenopteridae, which contains nine extant species in two genera. They include the largest animal ever known to have lived, the blue whale, which can reach , and the fin whale, which reaches ; even the smallest of the group, the northern minke whale, reaches .

Balaenoptera () is a genus of rorquals containing eight extant species. Balaenoptera comprises all but two of the extant species in its family (the humpback whale and gray whale); the genus is currently polyphyletic, with the two aforementioned species being phylogenetically nested within it.

Parabalaenoptera is an extinct genus of baleen whale found in Late Miocene sediments in Marin County, California. The type species is P. baulinensis. It was estimated to be about the size of the modern gray whale, about long. Zeigler placed P. baulinensis in the subfamily Parabalaenopterinae in 1997, a clade which includes an extinct species of rorqual whales, also part of the Balaenopteridae family.