Northern bottlenose whale
| Northern bottlenose whale | |
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| Size compared to an average human | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Infraorder: | Cetacea |
| Family: | Ziphiidae |
| Genus: | Hyperoodon |
| Species: | H. ampullatus |
| Binomial name | |
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Hyperoodon ampullatus (Forster, 1770) |
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| Northern bottlenose whale range | |
The northern bottlenose whale (Hyperoodon ampullatus) is a species of bottlenose whale in the ziphiid family, and being one of two members of the genus Hyperoodon. The northern bottlenose was hunted heavily by Norway and Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is one of the deepest diving mammals known, reaching depths of 1453 m (4767 ft).
It was first described by Johann Reinhold Forster in 1770, basing the name on the "bottle-nosed whales" seen by Pehr Kalm in his Travels into North America, and on Thomas Pennant's 1766 description of Samuel Dale's "bottle-head whale" found stranded above a bridge in Maldon, Essex, in 1717.
The species is fairly rotund and measure 9.8 metres (32 ft) in length when physically mature, and there have been claims that large individuals reach up to 11.2 metres (37 ft), rivaling Giant Beaked Whales and being significantly larger than known records of the subspecies in southern hemisphere and the close-resembling tropical species. The melon is extremely bluff. The beak is long and white on males but grey on females. The dorsal fin is relatively small at 30–38 centimetres (12–15 in) and set far back on their bodies. It is falcate (sickle-shaped) and usually pointed. The back is mid-to-dark grey. They have a lighter underside.
Weight estimates are hard to come by. For the northern bottlenose whale, 5,800–7,500 kilograms (12,800–16,500 lb) is given somewhat consistently.
Despite being deep diving beaked whales, they are known to come, play, and rest in shallow waters in small numbers. They are very playful and curious towards human vessels making them relatively easy targets for whale hunters.
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Wikipedia