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Balaenidae is a family of whales of the suborder mysticete 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 taxonomy is not in doubt. ... Concerning common names, the species was once commonly known in the North Atlantic and adjacent Arctic as the Greenland Right Whale. However, the common name Bowhead Whale is now generally used for the species."〕 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.〔Churchill, M., Berta, A. and Deméré, T. (2012), The systematics of right whales (Mysticeti: Balaenidae). Marine Mammal Science, 28: 497–521.〕〔''Kaliszewska, Z. A.J. SegerV. Rowntreeet al2005Population histories'' of right whales (Cetacea: Eubalaena) inferred from mitochondrial sequence diversities and divergences of their whale lice (Amphipoda: Cyamus)Molecular Ecology1434393456 〕 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Balaenidae」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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