BROAD-FRONTED BEAKED-WHALE. 425 



GET A GEA . PH YSETERIDjE. 



{ODONTOCETl.) 



BROAD-FRONTED BEAKED-WHALE. 

 Hyperoodon latifrons (J. E. Gray). 



Specific Character. — (External characters unkiiown.) Skull with the crests 

 of the maxillaries flat-topped and very thick, almost touching one another, 

 higher than the occipital region of the skull. 



Hyperoodon latifrons, J. E. Gray, Zool. Erebus & Terror, I., 27 (1846). 

 Lagenocetus ,, ,, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1863. 



In 1846 Dr. Gray figured and described, in the 

 " Zoology of H.M.S. Erebus and Terror," the skull of a 

 Hyperoodon from Orkney, which appeared to him to be 

 different from the common species, and bestowed on it 

 the name of H. latifrons. Subsequently he considered it 

 worthy even of generic distinction, and instituted the 

 genus Lagenocetus for its reception. The skull originally 

 described, which was formerly in Mr. Warwick's collec- 

 tion, is now in the British Museum. 



Prof. Eschricht, M. Gervais, and other cetologists, 

 have doubted the distinctness of H. latifrons from the 

 more common H. rostrata, believing that it is the adult 

 male of that species, an opinion which is apparently 

 supported by the fact that almost all the examples of 

 H. rostrata which have come under the observation of 

 naturalists have been females. But Dr. Gray has shown 

 that both sexes of both species are known {Proc. Zool. 

 Soc, 1860, p. 421), and Prof. Rcinhardt, who has lately 

 received a complete skeleton from the Faeroes, considers 



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