DESCRIPTION OF MESOPLODON MIRUM, A BEAKED 

 WHALE RECENTLY DISCOVERED ON THE COAST OF 

 NORTH CAROLINA. 



By Frederick W. True, 



Assistant Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. 



On July 29, 1912, the United States Bureau of Fisheries trans- 

 mitted to the United States National Museum a barrel containing 

 the head, tail, and pectoral of an adult female beaked whale of the 

 genus Mesoplodon which stranded on the outer bank of Bird Island 

 Shoal in Beaufort Harbor, North Carolina, three days earlier. On 

 examination the specimen was found to represent a new species, a 

 diagnosis of which was published under the name of Mesoplodan 

 mirum in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections.^ 



The director of the Fisheries Laboratory at Beaufort, Mr. Lewis 

 Radcliffe, furnished the following data regarding the whale, together 

 with a photograph, which is reproduced in Plate 52 : 



Apparently the whale had been swimming about among the shallow channels on 



Bird Island Shoal and was caught just inside the outer edge of the shoal by the falling 



tide. It was first sighted by launch No. 316 about 10 a. m. and the report brought 



back to the laboratory about noon. At 1.30 p. m., when visited, it had been badly 



mutilated by visitors (see photograph). The following data were obtained at this 



time: 



Ft. in. 



Total length 16 



Width of tail (flukes) about 4 8 



Tip of snout to origin of dorsal 9 



Tip of snout to origin of pectoral 3 8 



Tip of snout to vent 11 



Length of pectoral 1 8 



Greatest depth of body : 3 5 



Color: Back, slate-black; lower sides, yellow-purple, flecked with black; median 

 line of belly somewhat darker; a grayish area in front of vent; fins the color of the 

 back. 



Body covered with a thick layer of fat; flesh beneath this layer very dark red, of 

 loose texture, coarse and stringy. 



Walls of all the chambers of the heart comparatively thin. Weight of heart, 10.5 

 pounds; length from base of atria to tip of ventricles, 14.5 inches; width at base of 

 ventricles, 11 inches. 



> Smiths. Misc. Coll., vol. 60, No. 25, March 14, 1913. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 45— No. 2007. 



651 



