Catches or strandings of Balaenoptera omurai

Shiro Wada, National Research Institute of Fisheries Science
Masayuki Oishi, Iwate Prefectural Museum
Tadasu K. Yamada, National Science Museum

In the late 1970s eight Balaenoptera specimens of unknown
identity were caught in the lower latitudinal Indo-Pacific waters by Japanese research whaling vessels. The combination of the allozyme patterns and physical maturity of the eight specimens separated them from all acknowledged Balaenoptera species. In September 1998 we collected a medium-sized baleen whale carcass on a coastal island in the Sea of Japan. This specimen and the previously collected eight specimens resembled Balaenoptera physalus (fin whale) in external appearance but were much smaller. Comparison of external morphology, osteology and mitochondrial DNA data grouped the nine specimens as a
single species but separated them from all known baleen whale species. Therefore, here we describe a new species of Balaenoptera, which is characterized by its unique cranial morphology, its small number of baleen plates, and by its distant molecular relationships with all of its congeners. Our analyses also separated Balaenoptera brydei (Bryde's whale) and Balaenoptera edeni (Eden's whale) into two distinct species, raising the number of known living Balaenoptera species to eight.

The eight specimens were caught as "Bryde's whales" for the biological investigation under a special permit. Fresh appearance of whole ventral side was provided from a whale on deck of the research vessel.

Data are digitized from the Nature paper.
The holotype belongs to the Japanese National Science Museum.

Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
All attributes are included in the downloadable file (CSV or ESRI File Geodatabase) for "Complete Set of Dataset".

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
oid	Unique ID number (generated by OBIS-SEAMAP)
sp_obs	Species name recorded (always B. omurai)
sp_tsn	Taxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
musium_no	Museum number
baleen_plate	Collected baleen plates
body_length	Body length in meters
sex	Sex
ovaries_testes	Ovaries or testes
age	Age
maturity	Physical maturity (A and a: mature; n: immature)
obs_date	Date of catch or stranding
latitude_org	Position (Latitude in original format)
longitude_org	Position (Longitude in original format)
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
obs_time	Collected time (blank)
geom	Geometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP