Beaked whale

Beaked whale
Temporal range: Miocene–Recent
Baird's beaked whale (Berardius bairdii)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Infraorder: Cetacea
Parvorder: Odontoceti
(unranked): Physeterida
Superfamily: Ziphioidea
Family: Ziphiidae
Gray, 1850
Type genus
Ziphius
Cuvier, 1823
Genera

See text

Synonyms
  • Hyperoodontidae Gray, 1850
All known beaked whales as of 2007

Beaked whales (systematic name Ziphiidae) are a family of cetaceans noted as being one of the least-known groups of mammals because of their deep-sea habitat, reclusive behavior and apparent low abundance.[1] Only three or four of the 24 existing species are reasonably well-known. Baird's beaked whales and Cuvier's beaked whales were subject to commercial exploitation, off the coast of Japan, while the northern bottlenose whale was extensively hunted in the northern part of the North Atlantic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[2]

Reports emerged in late 2020 of the possible discovery of a new beaked whale species off the coast of Mexico, the taxonomy of which had not been determined as of December 2020.[3][4][5][6]

  1. ^ Bianucci, Giovanni; Post, Klaas; Lambert, Olivier (2008). "Beaked whale mysteries revealed by seafloor fossils trawled off South Africa". South African Journal of Science. 104 (3–4): 140–142. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  2. ^ Government of Canada, Environment (27 April 2011). "Recovery Strategy for the Northern Bottlenose Whale (Hyperoodon ampullatus), Scotian Shelf population, in Atlantic Canadian Waters - Species at Risk Public Registry". www.registrelep-sararegistry.gc.ca. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  3. ^ "Scientists Think They've Discovered a New Species of Beaked Whale". sciencealert.com. 12 December 2020.
  4. ^ Kozlov, Max (12 December 2020). "Previously Unknown Beaked Whale Species Spotted off Mexico". the-scientist.com. Archived from the original on 13 December 2020.
  5. ^ "Rare beaked whale sighting could be a world first for the species". Mongabay Environmental News. 14 January 2021. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  6. ^ MacKinnon, J. B. (30 March 2021). "An Entire Group of Whales Has Somehow Escaped Human Attention". The Atlantic. ISSN 1072-7825. Retrieved 4 April 2021.