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Distinctive osteology of distal flipper bones of tropical bottlenose whales, Indopacetus pacificus , from Taiwan: Mother and calf, calf with polydactyly
Author(s) -
Watson Alastair,
Kuo TzongFu,
Yang WeiCheng,
Yao ChiuoJu,
Chou LienSiang
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
marine mammal science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.723
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1748-7692
pISSN - 0824-0469
DOI - 10.1111/j.1748-7692.2007.00178.x
Subject(s) - watson , osteology , geography , ecology , biology , zoology , natural language processing , computer science
Beaked whales (family Ziphiidae) are relatively large marine mammals, although they are among the least known cetaceans. The 21 described species in six genera (Dalebout et al. 2004) are broadly distributed around the world, but live almost exclusively in far offshore deep waters where they spend relatively little time at the surface. Observational data are further hindered by their typically undemonstrative and shy surface behavior: their blow is poorly visible, they present a low surface profile, and they spend the majority of their time deep diving, and in general, vocalizing only when deeper than 200 m (reviewed in Cox et al. 2006).