Omura's Whale

Omura's whale, also called the dwarf fin whale (Balaenoptera omurai), is a small rorqual about which very little is known. Before its formal description it was treated as a dwarf or pygmy form of Bryde's whale. It was described in the journal Nature in 2003 by three Japanese scientists, from nine individuals: eight taken by Japanese research vessels in the Indo-Pacific in the late 1970s and one adult female collected in 1998 on the island of Tsunoshima in the Sea of Japan. Genetic work has confirmed it as a valid species and an early offshoot of the rorqual lineage, perhaps closer to the blue whale than to Bryde's whale. The eight specimens taken in the Indo-Pacific measured between 9.6 and 11.5 metres. The common name and the species name commemorate the Japanese cetologist Hideo Omura, and since 2015 field observations have been made of a population off northwestern Madagascar.