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Common minke whale
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Common minke whale
The common minke whale or northern minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) is a species of minke whale within the suborder of baleen whales.
It is the smallest species of the rorquals and the second smallest species of baleen whale. Although first ignored by whalers due to its small size and low oil yield, it began to be exploited by various countries beginning in the early 20th century. As other species declined, larger numbers of common minke whales were caught, largely for their meat. It is now one of the primary targets of the whaling industry. There is a dwarf form in the Southern Hemisphere.
This species is known in the fossil record from the Pliocene epoch to the Quaternary period (age range: 4.7 million years ago to present day).
The origins of the species' common name are obscure. One of the first references to the name came in Henrik Johan Bull's account of his 1893–95 voyage to the Antarctic, when he mentioned catching a small whale "called in the Arctic language a Mencke whale, after a German who accompanied Mr. Foyn on some of his voyages." According to the British writer John Guille Millais (The mammals of Great Britain and Ireland, 1906, vol. 3, p. 279), "Minkie was a Norwegian seaman who was always calling 'Hval' at whatever backfin he saw. He is now regarded as the type of the 'tenderfoot' at sea. Norwegians often refer to any small whale with some contempt or amusement as a 'Minkie' or 'Minkie's hval'." The American marine biologist and painter Richard Ellis, citing the Norwegian scientist Age Jonsgård, stated "that Meincke was a German laborer working for Svend Foyn, inventor of the grenade harpoon. Meincke 'one day mistook a school of this whale species for blue whales.... most probably he made this mistake during Foyn's whaling operations in the Varanger Fjord between 1868 and 1885."
It has formerly been known as the little piked whale, the lesser or least rorqual, and the sharp-headed finner. American whalemen in the 19th century simply thought of them as "young finbacks" or a "Finback's calf", apparently under the impression that they were juveniles of their larger relative, the fin whale. They were also called zwergwal (German: "dwarf whale") or vågehval (Norwegian: "bay whale"). In Japan they are called koiwashi-kujira ("little sardine whale") or minku-kujira ("minke whale"). In Greenland they are known by the Danish name sildepisker ("herring thresher"). In Spanish it is known as Rorcual aliblanco (Whitewing Rorcual), Ballena minke común (Common Minke whale) or Ballena enana (Dwarf whale).
Otto Fabricius, in his Fauna Groenlandica (1780), was the first to describe the minke, noting its small size and white baleen – but he described it erroneously under the name Balaena rostrata (the taxonomic designation for the beaked whale). In 1804, Baron de Lacepede named it Balaenoptera acuto-rostrata, basing his description partly on the stranding of a 4.26 m (14.0 ft) juvenile female near Cherbourg, France in 1791.
In 1872, the American whaleman and naturalist Charles Melville Scammon described and named Balaenoptera davidsoni, after an 8.3 m (27 ft) pregnant female that was found dead on the north shore of Admiralty Inlet in October 1870 in then Washington Territory (now Washington state) and towed into Port Townsend Bay by Italian fisherman, who flensed it on the beach. Scammon mentioned its "dwarfish size", "pointed head", "falcated dorsal fin", and the "white band" on its "inordinately small, pointed pectorals". In 1877, the Italian geologist and paleontologist Giovanni Capellini described and named Sibbaldius mondini from a juvenile specimen that was captured off Italy in 1771. Both were later synonymized with B. acutorostrata.
A smaller, Southern Hemisphere form of minke whale with white-banded flippers was first described in separate studies by Peter Best (1985) and Peter Arnold, Helene Marsh, and George Heinsohn (1987), though a white-flippered form in the Southern Hemisphere had been noted earlier. The former described a "diminutive form" based on specimens caught off Durban, South Africa, while the latter named a "dwarf form" based on specimens and sightings from Australia. This unnamed subspecies has a prominent white flipper and shoulder blaze and a dark throat patch, whereas what was called the "dark-shouldered" or "ordinary" form of minke whale (now known as a separate species, the Antarctic minke whale, B. bonaerensis) lacked these contrasting markings.
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Common minke whale
The common minke whale or northern minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) is a species of minke whale within the suborder of baleen whales.
It is the smallest species of the rorquals and the second smallest species of baleen whale. Although first ignored by whalers due to its small size and low oil yield, it began to be exploited by various countries beginning in the early 20th century. As other species declined, larger numbers of common minke whales were caught, largely for their meat. It is now one of the primary targets of the whaling industry. There is a dwarf form in the Southern Hemisphere.
This species is known in the fossil record from the Pliocene epoch to the Quaternary period (age range: 4.7 million years ago to present day).
The origins of the species' common name are obscure. One of the first references to the name came in Henrik Johan Bull's account of his 1893–95 voyage to the Antarctic, when he mentioned catching a small whale "called in the Arctic language a Mencke whale, after a German who accompanied Mr. Foyn on some of his voyages." According to the British writer John Guille Millais (The mammals of Great Britain and Ireland, 1906, vol. 3, p. 279), "Minkie was a Norwegian seaman who was always calling 'Hval' at whatever backfin he saw. He is now regarded as the type of the 'tenderfoot' at sea. Norwegians often refer to any small whale with some contempt or amusement as a 'Minkie' or 'Minkie's hval'." The American marine biologist and painter Richard Ellis, citing the Norwegian scientist Age Jonsgård, stated "that Meincke was a German laborer working for Svend Foyn, inventor of the grenade harpoon. Meincke 'one day mistook a school of this whale species for blue whales.... most probably he made this mistake during Foyn's whaling operations in the Varanger Fjord between 1868 and 1885."
It has formerly been known as the little piked whale, the lesser or least rorqual, and the sharp-headed finner. American whalemen in the 19th century simply thought of them as "young finbacks" or a "Finback's calf", apparently under the impression that they were juveniles of their larger relative, the fin whale. They were also called zwergwal (German: "dwarf whale") or vågehval (Norwegian: "bay whale"). In Japan they are called koiwashi-kujira ("little sardine whale") or minku-kujira ("minke whale"). In Greenland they are known by the Danish name sildepisker ("herring thresher"). In Spanish it is known as Rorcual aliblanco (Whitewing Rorcual), Ballena minke común (Common Minke whale) or Ballena enana (Dwarf whale).
Otto Fabricius, in his Fauna Groenlandica (1780), was the first to describe the minke, noting its small size and white baleen – but he described it erroneously under the name Balaena rostrata (the taxonomic designation for the beaked whale). In 1804, Baron de Lacepede named it Balaenoptera acuto-rostrata, basing his description partly on the stranding of a 4.26 m (14.0 ft) juvenile female near Cherbourg, France in 1791.
In 1872, the American whaleman and naturalist Charles Melville Scammon described and named Balaenoptera davidsoni, after an 8.3 m (27 ft) pregnant female that was found dead on the north shore of Admiralty Inlet in October 1870 in then Washington Territory (now Washington state) and towed into Port Townsend Bay by Italian fisherman, who flensed it on the beach. Scammon mentioned its "dwarfish size", "pointed head", "falcated dorsal fin", and the "white band" on its "inordinately small, pointed pectorals". In 1877, the Italian geologist and paleontologist Giovanni Capellini described and named Sibbaldius mondini from a juvenile specimen that was captured off Italy in 1771. Both were later synonymized with B. acutorostrata.
A smaller, Southern Hemisphere form of minke whale with white-banded flippers was first described in separate studies by Peter Best (1985) and Peter Arnold, Helene Marsh, and George Heinsohn (1987), though a white-flippered form in the Southern Hemisphere had been noted earlier. The former described a "diminutive form" based on specimens caught off Durban, South Africa, while the latter named a "dwarf form" based on specimens and sightings from Australia. This unnamed subspecies has a prominent white flipper and shoulder blaze and a dark throat patch, whereas what was called the "dark-shouldered" or "ordinary" form of minke whale (now known as a separate species, the Antarctic minke whale, B. bonaerensis) lacked these contrasting markings.
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