Cuviers Beaked Whale

Scientific Name: Ziphius cavirostris

The Cuvier's Beaked Whale is also known as a "goose-beaked" whale and you can see why when you look at this drawing since it has a very strange beak.

    Where they live

Cuvier's Beaked Whales are found all around the world except in the very cold waters near the Arctic and Antarctic.  

Fascinating Fact: Cuviers Beaked Whales were thought to be extinct for almost 50 years!

They are not often seen out at sea and mostly are only seen when they wash up dead on a beach. Because they are so seldom seen, in 1823 a French naturalist called Georges Cuvier discovered bones of this whale and he thought it must be extinct and named it after himself.  It wasn't until 1870 that people realised that there were still living Cuviers Beaked Whales in the ocean.

    Unique Feature of beaked whales: Their teeth

In fact all the beaked whales are very seldom seen and some have never been seen alive!  They are all quite small whales and they live and feed in very deep ocean waters.  The one thing that all beaked whales have in common is their strange teeth.  Most females have no teeth at all and the males have usually only grow two teeth which do not seem to be used for eating.  They do get used when the males fight though and beaked whales are often covered in scratches and scars.

    Feeding

They feed on squid and deep-sea fish which is one reason why they live in the deep oceans since their prey are found in canyons in the ocean floor.  In order to dive so deep they arch their backs and raise their tails and may stay down underwater for as long as 40 minutes.  Because they hunt in the dark they can mistake rubbish floating in the water for food.  A plastic bag can be mistaken for a tasty squid and swallowed.  A Cuvier's Beaked Whale was washed up on Mull in 2003 and when the contents of its stomach were examined they found it was full of black plastic from silage bales.  This is likely what killed this whale.

The black plastic found in the stomach of a Cuvier's beaked Whale

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