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The Lesser Rorqual(Balænoptera rostrata) in the Scottish Seas, with Observations on its Anatomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2014

Wm. Turner
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Extract

It is outside the scope of the present paper to enter into the geographical distribution generally of the Lesser Rorqual or Pike Whale (Balænoptera rostrata), and indeed there is no reason why I should do so, as it has so recently been considered by Professor Van Beneden, in his Histoire naturelle des Balénoptères. For a number of years it has been my custom to collect information regarding the Cetacea captured or stranded on the Scottish coasts, and when possible to obtain the animals or their skeletons. I have accumulated, therefore, a considerable body of information regarding the whales frequenting the Scottish seas, some of which I have already published. In the present communication it is my intention to record some facts regarding Balænoptera rostrata, and I may say that when a newspaper paragraph relates the capture of a whalebone whale, and, when measurements are given, if the length is under 30 feet, the animal is most probably the Lesser Rorqual.

Type
Proceedings
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 19 , July 1893 , pp. 36 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1893

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References

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note * page 57 Messrs Sims Woodhead and Gray, R. W. have given an amount (Jour, of Anat. and Phys., Jan. 1890)Google Scholar of the structure of the mucous membrane of the stomach of the Narwhal, and have found in intermediate compartment 3 in the stomach of that animal glands adjoining compartment 2 which have the structure of peptic cardiae glands, others adjoining compartment 4 like mucous pyloric glands. This compartment is therefore histologically, as well as topographically, intermediate.

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note ‡ page 57 The species Balœnoptera borealis was found by Mr R. Collett during the month of July to have its stomach and intestines filled with the Copepod(Calanus finmarchicus); he refers also to observations by Captain Bull, who found that the stomach contained the so-called “Kril,” Euphausia inermis, a Thysanopod Crustacean about 1½ inch long, which forms also the chief nourishment of Balænoptera sibbaldii.—Proc. Zool. Soc., London, April 20, 1886.Google Scholar

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note * page 64 The brothers Knox in their account of this animal give the vertebræ as follows, C7D11LCd30=48 ; but from the appearance of the tail in the dried skeleton it seems as if an additional cartilaginous nodule were present in the caudal series.

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note ║ page 73 In the hand of an immature male, 2½ feet long, caught at Dunbar in November 1885, and the skeleton of which I have placed in the University Museum, the phalanx of digit 1 was still cartilaginous, as also was the terminal phalanx of digit 5.