Description
Reaching a maximum length of about 4.2 meters (1.9 m when born), and with an estimated weight of about 1 tonne (1.032 tons), Hector's is one the smallest of the beaked whales. It is known from only a few stranded animals and a single confirmed sighting of a juvenile off Western Australia. Hector's beaked whales are dark greyish-brown dorsally, paler ventrally. A single adult male specimen had a white beak and white on the anterior portion of the head, with white, linear scars criss-crossing its body, while the juvenile seen off Western Australia had a mask covering its eyes and extending unto its melon and upper beak. The melon, which is not very prominent, slopes quite steeply to the short beak. Adult males have a pair of flattened, triangular teeth near the tip of the lower jaw. As with most other beaked whales, the teeth do not erupt in females. The dorsal fin is triangular to slightly hooked, small, and rounded at the tip. The leading edge of the dorsal fin joins the body at a sharp angle.
Read more about this topic: Hector's Beaked Whale
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any other place.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)