Classification of Cetaceans

In addition to the two suborders (Mysticeti and Odontoceti), the cetacean order contains numerous families, genera, and species. Each of these groupings represents a progressively more specialized division of the animals into categories on the basis of similarities in their skulls, postcranial skeletons, and external characteristics. The discipline which concerns itself with naming an animal and assigning it to its appropriate scientific category is known as taxonomy. An example of the classification of a cetacean species is shown in the following:

SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION OF THE ATLANTIC BOTTLENOSED DOLPHIN

Kingdom: Animalia all animals

Phylum: Chordata having at some stage a notochord, the precursor of the backbone

Subphylum: Vertebrata animals with backbones—fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals

Class: Mammalia animals that suckle their young

Order: Cetacea carnivorous, wholly aquatic mammals: whales, including dolphins and porpoises

Suborder: Odontoceti toothed whales as distinguished from Mysticeti, the baleen whales

Family: Delphinidae dolphins

Genus: Tursiops bottlenosed dolphins

Species: truncatus Atlantic bottlenosed dolphin

Modern taxonomy had its origin with the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus, whose tenth edition of the Systema Naturae in 1758 forms the official starting point. Following Linnaeus, modern scientific names consist of two words, a generic name, which has an initial capital, and a species name, which rarely does, occasionally in botany (some species names deriving from a person's name are capitalized). Both names are usually of Latin origin (sometimes Greek) and are italicized or underlined. These scientific names are of particular importance because, although common names of species often are different in different countries or even in different regions of the same country, the scientific name remains the same. For example, the right whale is universally known as Eubalaena glacialis though its common names include black right whale, nordcaper, sletbag, Biscay whale, and Biscayan right whale.

Although classification of many species is still in a state of flux, the classification of western North Atlantic cetaceans followed in this guide is as follows:

Page of
synoptic account
of the species

Order Cetacea

Suborder Mysticeti—Baleen whales

Family Balaenopteridae—Rorquals

Balaenoptera acutorostrata Lacepede 1804 Minke whale

Balaenoptera physalus (Linnaeus 1758) Fin whale

Balaenoptera musculus (Linnaeus 1758) Blue whale

Balaenoptera borealis Lesson 1828 Sei whale

Balaenoptera edeni Anderson 1879 Bryde's whale

Megaptera novaeangliae (Borowski 1781) Humpback whale

Family Balaenidae—Right whales

Balaena mysticetus Linnaeus 1758 Bowhead whale

Eubalaena glacialis (Borowski 1781) Right whale

Suborder Odontoceti—Toothed whales

Family Ziphiidae

Mesoplodon bidens (Sowerby 1804) North Sea beaked whale

Mesoplodon densirostris (Blainville in Desmarest 1817) Dense-beaked whale

Mesoplodon europaeus (Gervais 1855) Antillean beaked whale

Mesoplodon mirus True 1913 True's beaked whale

Ziphius cavirostris G. Cuvier 1823 Goosebeaked whale

Hyperoodon ampullatus (Forster 1770) Northern bottlenosed whale

Family Physeteridae

Physeter catodon Linnaeus 1758 Sperm whale

Kogia breviceps (Blainville 1838) Pygmy sperm whale

Kogia simus (Owen 1866) Dwarf sperm whale

Family Monodontidae

Monodon monoceros Linnaeus 1758 Narwhal

Delphinapterus leucas (Pallas 1776) Beluga

Family Stenidae

Steno bredanensis (G. Cuvier in Lesson 1828) Rough-toothed dolphin

Sotalia guianensis (P. J. van Beneden 1864) Guiana dolphin

Family Delphinidae

Peponocephala electra (Gray 1846) Many-toothed blackfish

Feresa attenuata Gray 1874 Pygmy killer whale

Pseudorca crassidens (Owen 1846) False killer whale

Globicephala melaena (Traill 1809) Atlantic pilot whale

Globicephala macrorhynchus Gray 1846 Short-finned pilot whale

Orcinus orca (Linnaeus 1758) Killer whale

Lagenorhynchus albirostris Gray 1846 White-beaked dolphin

Lagenorhynchus acutus (Gray 1828) Atlantic white-sided dolphin

Lagenodelphis hosei Fraser 1956 Fraser's dolphin

Tursiops truncatus (Montagu 1821) Bottlenosed dolphin

Grampus griseus (G. Cuvier 1812) Grampus

Stenella longirostris Gray 1828 Spinner dolphin

Stenella frontalis (G. Cuvier 1829) Bridled dolphin

Stenella coeruleoalba (Meyen 1833) Striped dolphin

Stenella plagiodon (Cope 1866) Spotted dolphin

Delphinus delphis Linnaeus 1758 Saddleback dolphin

Family Phocoenidae

Phocoena phocoena (Linnaeus 1758) Harbor porpoise

This tentative classification follows an unpublished list by W.E. Schevill and E.M. Mitchell currently under review. The scientific names are followed by the name of the individual who named the species and the year of naming, and then by the common name most often used in the western North Atlantic. It may be noted that some of the authors are in parentheses. This indicates that though the species name has remained the same since the date of naming the species has since been assigned to another genus. Because the species are not arranged in taxonomic order in this field guide, the page of the synoptic account of each is provided in the column to the right.