Antarctic Minke Whale

The Antarctic minke whale, also called the southern minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis), is a baleen whale and the second smallest rorqual after the common minke whale. Although it was first described in the mid-nineteenth century, it was not recognised as a distinct species until the 1990s. It lives mainly in the Southern Hemisphere with a circumpolar distribution in the Southern Ocean, including the Bellingshausen, Scotia, Weddell and Ross Seas, and it feeds mainly on euphausiids. Because its small size and low oil yield led whalers to ignore it, it avoided the fate of the larger baleen whales and became the most abundant baleen whale in the world, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. It is now hunted alongside the common minke whale. The oldest individuals measured lived 59 years for females and 63 years for males, and the IUCN lists the species as near threatened.