Are fish and whales different?

Yes. Fish and whales are different: whales are marine mammals (cetaceans), not fish.

According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), whales—like dolphins and porpoises—breathe air with lungs, are warm-blooded, give birth to live young, and nurse their calves with milk. Those traits set them apart from fish, which typically breathe with gills and have a different reproductive biology.

NOAA Fisheries likewise groups whales with other cetaceans as marine mammals protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Source: NOAA Ocean Service — Are dolphins fish? (also notes that whales and porpoises are mammals).

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