Balaenoptera acutorostrata
The common minke whale or northern minke whale is a species of minke whale within the suborder of baleen whales.

National Marine Sanctuaries · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- minke whalePBDB
- Sits inside
- BalaenopteraPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Balaenopteridae
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Mysticeti
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Mysticeti
Time the record covers
At least 5.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
32 occurrences of Balaenoptera acutorostrata on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
32 occurrences- Miocene6%
- Pliocene29%
- Pleistocene19%
- Holocene47%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
5 formations
- Yorktown Formation · Chesapeake Group2
- Port Orford Formation1
- Horokaoshirarika Formation · Fukagawa Group1
- Nashua Formation1
- Bahía Inglesa Formation1
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The named rock units Balaenoptera acutorostrata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 26 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
493 taxa- Balaenidae4 sites
- Balaenopteridae4 sites
- Delphinidae4 sites
- Balaena3 sites
- Megaptera novaeangliae3 sites
- Mysticeti3 sites
- Balaenula2 sites
- Carcharodon carcharias2 sites
- Carcharodon hastalis2 sites
- Cetotherium capellinii2 sites
- Hemisyntrachelus2 sites
- Herpetocetinae2 sites
- Kogia2 sites
- Larus2 sites
- Megaptera2 sites
- Orcinus orca2 sites
- Phalacrocorax2 sites
- Phocidae2 sites
- Physeter macrocephalus2 sites
- Pontoporiidae2 sites
- Raja2 sites
- Tapirus2 sites
- Ziphiidae2 sites
- <Brotulid>1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 31 sites for Balaenoptera acutorostrata, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
19 references- A record of fossil shallow-water whale falls from Italy5
- First Record of the Dwarf Minke Whale Balaenoptera acutorostrata in Chilean Waters4
- First confirmed finds of baleen whale from Iron Age Scania, Sweden, and their archaeological implications3
- Determining the ages of sub-fossil cetacean remains, found in the Carse of Stirling, Scotland3
- Late Pleistocene and Holocene whale remains (Cetacea) from Denmark and adjacent countries: Species, distribution, chronology, and trace element concentrations3
- Adopted “mammoths” from Alaska turn out to be a whale's tale1
- Evaluating ancient whale exploitation on the northern Oregon coast through ancient DNA and aooarchaeological analysis1
- Cetáceos fósiles de Chile: Contexto evolutivo y paleobiogeográfico1
- Neogene Cetacea of the Lee Creek Phosphate Mine, North Carolina1
- A new Pliocene sea lion, Proterozetes ulysses (Mammalia: Otariidae) from Oregon, U.S.A.1
- Marine mammal strandings in the New Caledonia region, Southwest Pacific1
- Whales, dorphines [dolphins] and porpoises off Shiretoko1
Each of the 32 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 7 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Balaenoptera acutorostrata
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- National Marine Sanctuaries
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Balaenoptera acutorostrata was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itBalaenoptera through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Lacépède 1804)