Balaena

Balaena
Temporal range: Miocene–Recent
Balaena mysticetus Illustration based on recovered fossils
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Infraorder: Cetacea
Family: Balaenidae
Genus: Balaena
Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
B. mysticetus
Species

B. mysticetus – Bowhead whale

Synonyms
  • Balena Scopoli, 1777
  • Leiobalaena Eschricht, 1849

Balaena is a genus of cetacean (whale) in the family Balaenidae. Balaena is considered a monotypic genus, as it has only a single extant species, the bowhead whale (B. mysticetus). It was named in 1758 by Linnaeus, who at the time considered all of the right whales (and the bowhead) as a single species. Historically, both the family Balaenidae and genus Balaena were known by the common name, "right whales", however Balaena are now known as bowhead whales.[1]

Balaena montalionis

Throughout history, the family Balaenidae has been the subject of great taxonomic debate. Authorities have repeatedly recategorized the three populations of right whale plus the bowhead whale, as one, two, three or four species, either in a single genus or in two separate genera. In the early whaling days, they were all thought to be a single species, Balaena mysticetus. Eventually, it was recognized that bowheads and right whales were in fact different. Later, morphological factors such as differences in the skull shape of northern and southern right whales indicated at least two species of right whale—one in the Northern Hemisphere, the other in the Southern Ocean.[2] As recently as 1998, Dale Rice, in his comprehensive and otherwise authoritative classification, Marine mammals of the world: systematics and distribution, listed just two species: Balaena glacialis (the right whales) and Balaena mysticetus (the bowheads).[3]

A DNA study by Rosenbaum in 2000, and another study by Churchill in 2007 finally provided clear evidence to conclude that the three living right whale species do comprise a phylogenetic lineage, distinct from the bowhead, and that the bowhead and the right whales are rightly classified into two separate genera.[4] The right whales, therefore, are now officially in the genus Eubalaena.

The fossil record of Balaena, dating to the late Miocene, encompasses ten species known from finds in Europe, North America, and South America.[5] Balena, described by Scopoli in 1777, and Leiobalaena, described by Eschricht in 1849, are junior synonyms of Balaena.

  1. ^ Reilly, S.B.; Bannister, J.L.; Best, P.B.; Brown, M.; Brownell Jr., R.L.; Butterworth, D.S.; Clapham, P.J.; Cooke, J.; Donovan, G.; Urbán, J. & Zerbini, A.N. (2012). "Balaena mysticetus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012: e.T2467A17879018. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2012.RLTS.T2467A17879018.en. "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."
  2. ^ Müller, J. (1954). "Observations of the orbital region of the skull of the Mystacoceti" (PDF). Zoologische Mededelingen. 32: 239–90.
  3. ^ Rice, Dale W. (1998). Marine mammals of the world: systematics and distribution. Society of Marine Mammalogy, Special Publication No. 4. ISBN 1891276034.
  4. ^ Kenney, Robert D. (2008). "Right Whales (Eubalaena glacialis, E. japonica, and E. australis)". In Perrin, W. F.; Wursig, B.; Thewissen, J. G. M. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Academic Press. pp. 962–69. ISBN 978-0-12-373553-9. Retrieved 20 May 2012.
  5. ^ The Paleobiology Database Balaena entry accessed on 21 December 2010