One hundred
and fifty years ago a skull collected from a 9.7m whale
stranded in Akaroa Harbour, Banks Peninsula, New Zealand
was found to represent a new species of beaked whale.
It was given the name Berardius arnuxii by Duvernoy
in 1851. Its specific and common names refer to the
French surgeon, M. Arnoux, who presented the skull to
the Paris Museum of Natural History in 1846. (Unfortunately,
Duvernoy made a mistake in the spelling of the species
name, omitting the 'o' from Arnoux's name.) Little is
known about this whale: nowhere within its range is
it considered very well known or common. Unlike its
Northern Hemisphere cousin, Baird's Beaked Whale, Arnoux's
Beaked Whales are not taken by commercial whaling.
