Abstract
PROF. KYOSUKE HIRASAKA, Department of Zoology, Taihoku Imperial University, Formosa, informs us that he has recently received a letter and a photograph from Mr. T. Iwasaki, chief meteorologist at Ishigakijima Observatory (124 ° 10X E., 24 ° 30′ N.), one of the main islands of the Sakishima Group in the Riukiu Archipelago, describing a marine animal caught off Ishigaki-jima and brought ashore by fishermen on March 8, 1935. From the characteristic form of head and lower jaw, and also its size, nearly 8 ft. long, Prof. Hirasaka believes that it might be a pigmy sperm-whale, Kogia breviceps. The only further information available is that it was a dark-skinned animal, and its flesh was of a reddish hue. Prof. Hirasaka points out that this whale was already known from California (Gill, Amer. Naturalist, 1871), as well as in its natural home, the Indian and Southern Oceans, and Mr. Francis C. Fraser, of the British Museum (Natural History), informs us that Van Beneden and Gervais, in their “Ostéographie des Cétaces” (1880), describe and figure a specimen of Kogia which was received from Japan.
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A Remarkable Whale from Japan. Nature 137, 267 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137267a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137267a0