Supersize dolphin-whale?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

There’s a nasty photo series in today’s Huffpo (actually a link from life.com) that shows the butchering of a whale in Japan. Ew gross, yeah, ick… but what interests me is the whale itself. It appears to be the biggest dolphin I have ever seen in my life. In the second shot in the series of 15, it’s plain that the men in the photo would fit inside its mouth, since the long dolphinish snout appears to be at least 3 feet long!

I have never heard of a whale that looks like a gigantic dolphin. Any ideas?

Photos are here

2

i’m far from an expert, but it looks like it could a be a bottlenose whale. Or possibly a Baird’s beaked whale. The Baird’s whale is rare, but still hunted in small numbers by Japan, apparently.

3

It’s a Baird’s. Warning gory pic.

4

Ummm… the pics themselves identify it as bottlenose whale.

Pic 12

5

Bottlenose whales are only found in the Atlantic and Antarctic oceans. Baird’s Beaked whales are native to Japanese waters.

6

The fact that people still hunt whales depresses me to no end :frowning: