No photo available
Blainville's beaked whale
Mesoplodon densirostris
Valid name.
- English
- Blainville's beaked whale
- Scientific
- Mesoplodon densirostris
- Dhivehi
- No recorded Dhivehi name
- Group
- Beaked whales
- Maximum size
- About 4.5-4.7 m
- Depth and habitat
- Deep oceanic waters and steep slopes
- IUCN status
- LC · Least ConcernLeast Concern (LC), assessed 2020
Description
A medium-sized beaked whale with a distinctive arched lower jaw. In adult males a single large tooth erupts from the top of each arch, sometimes encrusted with barnacles, giving the head a strange profile. The body is dark blue-grey and often covered in oval white scars from cookiecutter shark bites. It makes long, deep dives to hunt squid and fish.
In the Maldives
First recorded in the Maldives during the 1998 survey; seen occasionally on offshore surveys.
Sources
- sealifebase.se /summary/Mesoplodon-densirostris.html
- mammalwatching.com /wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Maldives-cetaceans-review-2012.pdf
- mrc.gov.mv /assets/Uploads/2005-Observations-of-cetaceans-in-the-Maldives-1990-20
- commons.wikimedia.org /wiki/File:Adult_Male_Blainville's_Beaked_Whale.jpg
Dhivehi name source: No Dhivehi name found in the cetacean literature reviewed (Anderson 2005; Anderson et al. 2012), FishBase/SeaLifeBase or Dhivehi Wikipedia.