Tropical Bottlenose Whale
| Tropical 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: |
Indopacetus Moore, 1968 |
| Species: | I. pacificus |
| Binomial name | |
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Indopacetus pacificus Longman, 1926 |
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| Tropical Bottlenose Whale range | |
| Synonyms | |
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Mesoplodon pacificus |
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Mesoplodon pacificus
The tropical bottlenose whale (Indopacetus pacificus), also known as the Indo-Pacific beaked whale and the Longman's beaked whale, was considered to be the world's rarest cetacean until recently, but the spade-toothed whale now holds that position. As of 2010[update], the species is now known from nearly a dozen strandings and over 65 sightings.
The species has had a long history riddled with misidentifications, which are now mostly resolved. A skull and jaw found on a beach in Mackay, Queensland, Australia in 1882 provided the basis for the initial description of this species by H. A. Longman in 1926,. Other researchers were not convinced, and felt this specimen might instead represent a Pacific form of True's beaked whale or a female bottlenose whale. Almost 30 years after Longman's original publication, a second skull was discovered near Danane, Somalia (1955). This specimen likely stranded on the coast but was subsequently processed into fertilizer. Only the skull survived. Biologist Joseph C. Moore used this skull, together with the original Mackay specimen, to effectively demonstrate that Longman's beaked whale was a unique species and elevated it to its own genus, Indopacetus.
The next major development happened when Dalebout et al. (2003) used a combination of genetic and morphological analyses to identify four further specimens, including a complete adult female with a fetus found in the Maldives in January 2000. The other remains consisted of a skull from Kenya collected some time before 1968, and two juvenile males from South Africa from strandings in 1976 and 1992, respectively. Based on morphological analyses, Dalebout et al. (2003) concluded that the genus Indopacetus was a valid one. The external appearance and colour pattern of this species was also revealed, and a firm connection was established with the mysterious tropical bottlenose whales that had been sighted in the Indian and Pacific Oceans since the 1960s. While this paper was in press, a specimen that was first mis-identified as a Baird's beaked whale washed up in Kagoshima, Japan in July 2002.
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