Ziphiidae
Baird's Beaked Whale
B. bairdii
Least ConcernGenus
Berardius
The giant beaked whales — the largest ziphiids, and the only ones in which both sexes erupt their tusks.
3
species
About Berardius
Berardius species are the largest beaked whales, reaching eleven to twelve metres, with a long tubular beak and a relatively small, rounded melon. They break the family’s usual pattern in that both sexes erupt two pairs of lower teeth rather than the males alone, and the scarring that covers mature animals is correspondingly found on females too.
The genus gained a third species in 2019. Japanese whalers working off Hokkaido had long distinguished a smaller, darker animal they called karasu, the raven, from the familiar Baird’s beaked whale; genetic and morphological analysis confirmed it as distinct and it was named Berardius minimus. All three species are confined to cold water — two in the North Pacific, one circumpolar in the Southern Ocean.
