SIBBALD'S RORQUAL OR BLUE WHALE 



Genus Balaenoptera. 



SIBBALD'S RORQUAL OR BLUE WHALE. 



Balcenoptera sibbaldii. Gray. 

 Plate 43. 



The Rorquals, also called Fin Whales, Finbacks or Finners, by whalers, 

 are characterised by their extenuated bodies, rather small and pointed heads, 

 comparatively small flippers, and the large number of longitudinal furrows 

 on the throat and under parts. The dorsal fin is falcated. 



The seven vertebrae of the neck are free. 



The Blue Whale, as the largest of this group is now usually named, 

 exceeds in size any known animal and measures up to 85 feet and occasion- 

 ally more in total length. 



Millais mentions a monster measuring 102 feet killed by Captain Foden 

 near Derafjord, Iceland, in 1896, and gives the dead weight of the species 

 " at from one hundred and fifty to two hundred tons." The same author 

 gives the colour of an adult bull whose chase and capture he witnessed in 

 August 1905 as follows {Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland^ vol. iii. 

 p. 250) : " The whole of the upper parts were a pale blue-grey, with 

 numerous small brown-grey spots and a few white spots on the neck, 

 shoulders, and flank ; tail blue-grey with a white anterior margin ; under 

 parts dull brownish grey, being especially dark in the throat and ventral 

 grooves. Pectorals pale bluish grey with the anterior edge white ; inner 

 surface and lower convex border pure white ; iris pale brown. . . . 

 Tail much spotted with white both above and below." 



