Indopacetus pacificus
The tropical bottlenose whale, also known as the Indo-Pacific beaked whale or Longman's beaked whale, is a species of beaked whale in the family Ziphiidae. It is the only species in the genus Indopacetus. Known as of 2010 from about a dozen strandings and over 65 sightings, it was considered to be the world's rarest cetacean until recently, but the spade-toothed whale now holds that position.
Jörg Mazur · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- tropical bottlenose whalePBDB
- Sits inside
- IndopacetusPBDB
- Diet
- piscivore, carnivorePBDB, for Ziphiidae
- Life habit
- aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Cetacea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
- Environment
- marine,freshwaterPBDB, for Odontoceti
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
11 occurrences of Indopacetus pacificus on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
11 occurrences- Holocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Indopacetus pacificus and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Indopacetus pacificus and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
No other named taxon is catalogued from any of those sites.
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Indopacetus pacificus, and this reads all of them.
Entered from
2 references- Cetacean abundance in Hawaiian waters estimated from a summer/fall survey in 20026
- Appearance, distribution, and genetic distinctivenss of Longman's beaked whale, Indopacetus pacificus5
Each of the 11 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Indopacetus pacificus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jörg Mazur
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Indopacetus pacificus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itIndopacetus through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Longman 1926)