The baleen whales of the South Atlantic / by Sir William Turner.

  • William Turner
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The baleen whales of the South Atlantic / by Sir William Turner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of a Balsenoptera, which I have identified as similar in character to B. rostrata of the North Atlantic. Balsenoptera rostrata. This species, known to fishermen as the Lesser Piked Rorqual, is the smallest and most frequent of the baleen whales stranded on the coast of Scotland.* It has not been, I believe up to now, recognised by zoologists as a species frequenting the South Atlantic. Mr Coughtrey, however, informed me that the whaling seamen engaged in the South Shetlands and Graham Land fishing are acquainted with a small baleen whale called by them Min'ka, which contrasted strongly in its dimensions with the Blue Whale, Sye Whale and Humpback. Its relatively small size, the thinness of its coat of blubber, and the short whalebone made it of so little commercial value that it was seldom captured. During the last whaling season one was shot, and a right adult tympanic bone, along with a well- grown foetus, was preserved by Mr Coughtrey. From the study of these specimens I regard this cetacean as the species Balcenoptera rostrata. Tympanic Bone. The small size of this bone in rostrata at once distinguished it from the large tympanies of the other Baltenopteridte. I have carefully compared the South Atlantic specimen with the tympanies of this species from the North Atlantic in the Anatomical Museum. Length. Breadth. Height. B. rostrata— South Atlantic Elie, Firth of Forth V J 5 '? * Burntisland, „ „ . Alloa „ „ (young) . 3*3 In., 85 mm. 87 „ 87 „ 85 „ 81 „ 2 in., 50 mm. 45 „ 40 „ 44 „ 2'2 in., 56 mm. 55 „ 56 „ 56 „ The South Atlantic specimen closely corresponded in dimensions to the tympanic bones of rostrata captured in the Firth of Forth, the somewhat greater breadth being due to the outer surface being a little more convex in the Southern specimen than in those from the North Atlantic. The configuration of the outer and inner surfaces of the tympanic, the appear- ance of the shallow inferior keel, the sharp ridge of the anterior border, the blunt posterior border, the sinuous character of the upper border * See my memoir on the Lesser Rorqual in Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xix., 1892, in which several specimens are described.
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