Description
English: sowerby's beaked whale
Date 23 August 2012, 18:25:03
Author Pj.vanderlinde
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spitssnuitdolfijn.JPG

Sowerby's beaked whale (Mesoplodon bidens), also known as the North Atlantic or North Sea beaked whale, is a species of toothed whale. It was the first mesoplodont whale to be described. James Sowerby, an English naturalist and artist, first described the species in 1804 from a skull obtained from a male that had stranded in the Moray Firth, Scotland, in 1800. He named it bidens, which derives from the two teeth present in the jaw, now known to be a very common feature among the genus. Order: Artiodactyla, Infraorder: Cetacea, Family: Ziphiidae, Subfamily: Hyperoodontinae, Genus: Mesoplodon, Species: Mesoplodon bidens Sowerby, 1804.