Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The beaked whales are the second-largest family of cetaceans after the oceanic dolphins (Delphinidae). Beaked whales were one of the first extant clades to diverge from the ancestral lineage. The earliest known beaked whale fossils date to the Miocene, about 15 million years ago. [15] [16]
Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris). The Cuvier's beaked whale, or Ziphius (Ziphius cavirostris), is a large species of beaked whale, measuring up to seven meters long and weighing seven tons, with a pointed, rather short beak (especially compared to mesoplodons), from which two prominent teeth protrude in males. [43]
The family Balaenidae, the right whales, contains two genera and four species. All right whales have no ventral grooves; a distinctive head shape with a strongly arched, narrow rostrum, bowed lower jaw; lower lips that enfold the sides and front of the rostrum; and long, narrow, elastic baleen plates (up to nine times longer than wide) with fine baleen fringes.
The southern right whale dolphin and the hourglass dolphin live only in the Southern Ocean. The narwhal and the beluga live only in the Arctic Ocean. Sowerby's beaked whale and the Clymene dolphin exist only in the Atlantic and the Pacific white-sided dolphin and the northern straight dolphin live only in the North Pacific. [citation needed]
Researchers found an increase in common dolphin sightings in the English Channel and Hebrides, and a decline in white-beaked dolphins in the Hebrides.
The toothed whales (also called odontocetes, systematic name Odontoceti) are a clade of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales with teeth, such as beaked whales and the sperm whales. 73 species of toothed whales are described.
The white-beaked dolphin is a robust species of dolphin with a short beak. Adults can reach 2.3 to 3.1 m (7 ft 7 in to 10 ft 2 in) long and weigh 180 to 354 kg (397 to 780 lb). Calves are 1.1 to 1.2 m (3 ft 7 in to 3 ft 11 in) long at birth and probably weigh about 40 kg (88 lb). [4]
Cuvier's beaked whale, goose-beaked whale, or ziphius (Ziphius cavirostris) is the most widely distributed of all beaked whales in the family Ziphiidae. [7] It is smaller than most baleen whales —and indeed the larger toothed cetaceans (like orca and sperm whales )—yet it is large among the beaked whales and smaller cetaceans, appearing ...