For author’s summary of species look here
This will be the last review of a cetacean species from the Monterey Bay Aquarium collection, the sperm whale adult and calf pair.
The adult female measures 29 cm, which corresponds to an 11.6 m whale at the marketed 1:40 scale. Above, you can see it scales well with the Safari Sea Life giant squid (24.5 cm/9.8 m) and the CollectA basking shark (22 cm/ 8.8 m).
For the author’s overview of this species, please see this review
Despite many killer whale figures having been produced, it has been about 2 years since I’ve last covered this species. Most of them tend to fall short of my standards, but maybe things will be different for the Monterey Bay Aquarium series that rarely leaves me disappointed.
The Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenella frontalis) is a member of the family Delphinidae that can be found in temperate and tropical waters throughout the Atlantic. Calves are born unspotted, and spots don’t appear until 3-4 years of age, on average. More spots appear as the dolphin ages and physically mature dolphins have the heaviest spotting, although the amount of spotting can still vary between individuals.
With its distinctive, sharply contrasting mix of gray, black, blue, white, and yellow coloration, the Atlantic white-sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus acutus) is one of the ocean’s most attractive species of dolphin. And yet, it is not terribly popular with toy manufacturers which tend to focus on the far more popular but somewhat bland bottlenose dolphin.
The minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) belongs to the same genus as the world’s largest animal, the blue whale, but at 26-33’ (8-10.2 meters) is only a fraction of its giant cousin’s size. Indeed, the minke whale is the world’s smallest species of rorqual and the second smallest species of baleen whale (the pygmy right whale is the smallest).
Review and images by JimoAi; edited by bmathison1972
The narwhal (Monodon monoceros) is a species of toothed whale that lives in the Artic waters of Greenland, Canada, and Russia. Along with the beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas), they are the only living members of the Monodontidae family of whales and it’s not too hard to see why.
The beaked whales of the family Ziphiidae are collectively among the most elusive and poorly understood of all cetaceans, or mammals in general. Roughly 24 species have been described so far with the Ramari’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon eueu) having been described in 2021. Indeed, new beaked whale species are regularly described, or their taxonomy revised, as our understanding of them increases.
74 years ago from this very day, Lt. Col. Waldon C. Winston witnessed and documented what he noted as the largest whale to have ever been weighed. Winston was aboard the Kyo Maru No.6. during the 1947/48 Antarctic whaling season as an observer to ensure the Japanese whalers complied with the International Whaling Regulations and directives issued by General Douglass MacArthur.
While the more popular cetacean species exist in most parts of the world, there exist many that are confined to their own little corner of the ocean, such as the North Pacific white-sided dolphin (Sagmatias obliquidens). These dolphins exist across the entire span of the North Pacific.
Review and images by EpicRaptorMan; edited by bmathison1972
This small dolphin is known from an assortment of common names some of which include: the panda dolphin, skunk dolphin, jacobita, and Commerson’s dolphin, just to name a few. This cetacean was first described in 1767 by the French naturalist Dr. Philibert Commerson while exploring the waters around the southern tip of South America and was scientifically named Cephalorhynchus commersonii in 1804.
There are many iterations of a fabled, island-sized sea monster across various cultures, which were in no doubt inspired by early accounts of animals such as the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). Blue whales exist in all major oceans, but precise distributions are patchy and their migratory movements are poorly understood.
