Description
English: Blainville's beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris).
Date 24 September 2010
Source http://www.flickr.com/photos/noaaphotolib/5020535408/
Author NOAA Photo Library
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beaked_Whale.jpg

Blainville's beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris), or the dense-beaked whale, is the widest ranging mesoplodont whale and perhaps the most documented. The French zoologist Henri de Blainville first described the species in 1817 from a small piece of jaw — the heaviest bone he had ever come across — which resulted in the name densirostris (Latin for "dense beak"). Off the northeastern Bahamas, the animals are particularly well documented, and a photo identification project started sometime after 2002. Order: Artiodactyla, Infraorder: Cetacea, Family: Ziphiidae, Subfamily: Hyperoodontinae, Genus: Mesoplodon, Species: Mesoplodon densirostris Blainville, 1817.