Omura's Whales

Omura's whale is a small baleen whale so recently identified that it wasn't confirmed as a distinct species until 2003, and wasn't studied alive in the wild until a population was found off Madagascar in 2015.

Classification

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Mammalia
Order	Cetacea
Family	Balaenopteridae
Genus	Balaenoptera
Species	omurai

Discovery

For decades, Omura's whales were misidentified as small Bryde's whales. DNA and skeletal analysis published in 2003 revealed a genetically distinct species, named for Japanese cetologist Hideo Omura.

Description

Omura's whales closely resemble a small Bryde's whale, with a slender body and asymmetric head coloration similar to the fin whale — dark on the right side of the lower jaw, pale on the left.

Size

Omura's whales measure 33 to 38 feet in length, making them one of the smaller members of the rorqual family.

Habitat

Omura's whales inhabit tropical and subtropical waters, with confirmed sightings off Japan, Thailand, the Solomon Islands, and Madagascar, where the first dedicated living population was studied starting in 2015.

Conservation

So little is known about Omura's whale population size or trends that the IUCN lists it as Data Deficient.