Smallest baleen whale

The smallest species of baleen whale (toothless but possessing filtration or baleen plates for filtering food from water) is the pygmy right whale Caperea marginata, measuring 6.0–6.5 m long, and weighing 3,000–3,500 kg. Native to the Southern Ocean, it was indicated in 2012 by research to be a surviving species of a hitherto-believed long-extinct group of baleen whales known as the cetotheres.