Back

Blainville's Beaked Whale

Mesoplodon densirostris

Classification

Family
Ziphiidae

Blainville's beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris), or the dense-beaked whale, is believed to be the widest ranging mesoplodont whale. The French zoologist Henri de Blainville first described the species in 1817 from a small piece of jaw—the heaviest bone he had ever come across—which resulted in the name densirostris (Latin for "dense beak"). Off the northeastern Bahamas, the animals are particularly well documented, and a photo identification project started sometime after 2002.

Distribution

(c) NOAA Photo Library, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC-BY
Loading map…
Countries in the Picchu catalog
Spain · 4France · 1BrazilPeruUnited Kingdom