Berardius bairdii

Baird's beaked whale, also known commonly as the northern giant bottlenose whale, North Pacific bottlenose whale, giant four-toothed whale, northern four-toothed whale and North Pacific four-toothed whale, is a species of whale in the genus Berardius of the family Ziphiidae. Baird's beaked whale and Arnoux's beaked whale are so similar that researchers have debated whether or not they are simply two populations of the same species. However, genetic evidence and their wide geographical separation has led them to be classified as separate. Baird's beaked whale is the largest beaked whale and the second largest living species of toothed whale after the sperm whale.

Berardius bairdii

Jörg Mazur · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
Sits inside
BerardiusPBDB
Diet
piscivore, carnivorePBDB, for Ziphiidae
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Cetacea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
Environment
marine,freshwaterPBDB, for Odontoceti

Time the record covers

At most 12 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 0 of 5 occurrencesHolocene — about 5 of 5 occurrences17 ka–0 Mya — about 5 occurrences512 ka0 Mya

5 occurrences of Berardius bairdii on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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

5 occurrences

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.

Berardius bairdii and its relatives

Holocene

Where Berardius bairdii and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

20 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Berardius bairdii, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

4 references

Each of the 5 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. 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 content2

Picture of Berardius bairdii

Credit
Jörg Mazur
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itBerardius through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stejneger 1883