Are There Toothless Whales?

Yes. Such whales have whiskers instead of teeth, and are known as "Mysticeti." A common example is the Greenland or bowhead right whale, one that frequents the North Pacific and the North Atlantic. About one-third of his length is taken up by his head. He is closely related to another toothless wonder, the blue whale, largest of all mammals, living or extinct. A newborn blue whale calf can be over twenty feet long. A model of the adult blue whale, made of polyurethane flesh on a steel skeleton, covered with fiber-glass skin, was for several years a special exhibit in the Hall of Biology of Mammals in New York's Museum of Natural History.
The internal whiskers of these mammoth creatures, properly called "baleen," are referred to as whalebone. Not really bone, it is fundamentally like hair. The Japanese call it hige or whiskers. Its use has long been superseded in corset and other manufactures by synthetics. However, it is still used as bristles in certain types of industrial brushes.
The toothless whale's overcoat of blubber, a thick rubbery layer under a paper-thin skin, is what enables him to maintain a body temperature similar to man's. The blubber, producing 50 to 80 percent of its own weight in edible oil, renders down to make cooking fats, soap and other products.
The whaling industry takes a tremendous toll of these toothless whales. For example, the three Japanese whaling fleets returned last year, after four months in the Antarctic, having caught their quota of 1,493 blue whale units. A unit equals one blue whale or its equivalent in two finback, two and a half humpback or six sei whales.