Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Infraorder: Cetacea
Family: Ziphiidae
Subfamily: Berardiinae
Genus: Berardius
Species: B. arnuxii
Binomial name: Berardius arnuxii
Common names: Berardius, Arnoux's Beaked Whale, Four-toothed Whale, Southern Four-toothed Whale, Southern Giant Bottlenosed Whale
Arnoux's beaked whale (Berardius arnuxii) inhabits the cold Southern Hemisphere waters. The overwhelming majority of strandings have been from around New Zealand.
Arnoux's beaked whales are a gregarious species generally found in groups of 6-10, but larger groups of 80 individuals have been recorded. They are one of the largest members of the family Ziphiidae ranging from 8 to 12 m in length. They have long, tubular bodies and blunt or rounded flippers.
One of their common names “Southern four-toothed whale” is because of two pairs of triangular shaped teeth found in their lower jaws. These are visible in mature adults when their mouth is closed.
Their body is predominantly a dark brown in colour with paler colouring on their head and ventral sides (undersides), which also have white patches. Like other whale species, males show extensive scarring, particularly around their dorsal fins. The dorsal fin is set far back on the body and is relatively small for a beaked whale. The dorsal has a straight leading edge and concave trailing edge. Their head is relatively small and their beak is slender. They have a prominent melon which slopes down into the ‘bottlenose’ of ziphiids. The lower jaw protrudes past the upper jaw. There is a deep V-shaped groove on the throat that consists of folds in the skin and blubber. They have a small single blowhole. They can live up to 85 years.
[[uploads/images/Te Henui/Faunatwo/1-Berardius_arnuxii.jpg|
]]The blue colour shows this whales distribution.
Thanks to Wikipedia for text and information:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
