PIGMY WHALE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23965, 15 May 1941, Page 11

PIGMY WHALE

AN UNUSUAL VISITOR DISCOVERY IN CANTERBURY SPECIMEN LATER MUTILATED (0.C.) CIIRISTCTH'HCH, Wednesday Discovered stranded near the end of Pleasant Point spit on Thursday, a rare pigmy sperm whale has been taken over by the Canterbury Museum authorities. After the specimen had been identified on Friday afternoon, however, someone hacked off about six inches of the jaw, seriously mutilating it, and the museum authorities are now trying to find the missing piece.

When members of the museum stall had a look at tiie whale on Friday they identified it as a rare inhabitant of the southern seas, named by scientists Kogia breviceps. but known _to whalers as the pigmy sperm whale. Few specimens have been obtained and little is known of the life story of this cetacean, one of the toothed whales and practically a miniature—growing to a maximum length of Jolt. —of the great 75ft. sperm whale or cachalot. The pigmy that came ashore at Pleasant Point is a female, and only 10ft. long, but had 10 teeth on each side of the narrow lower jaw, which, as in the cachalot, seems disproportionately small compared with the bulky head. Although it lay jn a spot difficult of access, the body was successfully loaded on to a break-down truck on Saturday. The specimen is now in cold storage awaiting scientific attention. While at the spit, the museum party saw the remains of what was probably a southern sea elephant, one of the mightiest of all seals. Apparently some 12 months ago, two of these huge creatures, whose home is in the Antarctic, entered the estuary and went to make their way back to the sea over the spit. One died on the wav, and subsequently fire swept through the scrub, leaving onlv a charred skeleton. This measures Ifjft. long and 4ft. across the flippers.