Delphinus minimus

 

 

In the warm seas of the fabulous Solomon Islands, in the middle of those lands which approach the constitution of the Moluccas, we were toured (August 2 and 10, 1825) by thousands of slender-beaked dolphins, whose size among the tallest, it did not exceed two feet. Their general color was brown, and we noticed a white spot only at the end of the muzzle. They jump out of the water like sombres, and follow a constant direction, all forming two lines arranged like a chessboard.

-        Compliments de Buffon, 1838, page 616

 

I didn’t find a whole lot about this dolphin beyond the blurb I just copied above, originally in French. However, I believe it has the distinction of being the smallest dolphin species ever reported, dead or alive. Hershkovitz 1966 and Jefferson 2021 list the species in their catalogues, but do not offer any further speculation.

 

 

As can be seen above, Delphinus minimus is significantly smaller than the smallest confirmed cetacean species, the Vaquita porpoise. It's more comparable in size to a large fish, which, in my opinion, is probably the likely identity of the species. That said, I have no idea what fish species are native to the Solomon islands, are 2ft long, brownish and school in groups numbering thousands of individuals.

The description personally brings to mind cownose rays, which are indeed brown and create large schools, but again, I don't know how common schooling rays are in the Solomon Islands.

I'm totally open to outsider speculation and additions if you want to help beef up this article. Feel free to comment or hmu on Twitter (BrochJamm)

I love you too, Batsy

 

Delphinus coronatus - Crowned Dolphin

 

 

We owe to Mr. de Fréminville, frigate captain of the royal navy, the only details that science has on the dolphin which concerns us at the moment. No more recent observer has come to sanction by the results of his research the particularities reported by this educated traveler, and as testimony of our love for the truth, we will limit ourselves to transcribing the description that he traced in 1806. This is the only way to preserve the sources from which we draw their original purity.

The crowned dolphin has an elongated body, and its dimensions vary from thirty to thirty-six feet, with a circumference of fifteen feet at its greatest thickness. The head is small relative to the volume of the animal, and the forehead is convex and obtuse. The two jaws extend into a very long and very sharp bee, and the lower one especially exceeds the upper one. The latter has forty-eight teeth, small, acute and conical in shape, while the upper jaw has only thirty. The curved dorsal fin is closer to the tail than to the head, and the caudal to the shape of a whole croissant. The two pectorals are of mediocre size. The color of this dolphin is uniform black both above and below; but what mainly characterizes it are two concentric yellow circles placed on the forehead, and forming a sort of diadem, from which its specific name derives.

This dolphin whale is common in the Glacial Sea according to M. de Fréminville, and we begin to encounter it around 74° degrees of boreal latitude. But it is only in the middle of the islets of Spitsbergen(Svalbard, WAY up there), around the 80th degree, that we see him gather in considerable troops, whose confidence is so great that they come to play at touching the ships. The swimming of these cetaceans consists of rotational movements, or rather, like porpoises, they describe continuous arcs of circles. The water that they release through their vent is pushed noisily, and with such force that it soon has only the appearance of a light vapor, which does not, however, rise above six feet.

-  Complements de Buffon, 1838, pg 607

 

 

This is admittedly one of several species in which I have not been able to find the original source itself. I'm just assuming that Buffon copied the original description verbatim, but at the moment I can't confirm that. I actually discovered this species through a later American publication A Book Of Whales (1900), which mentions it as a footnote, suggesting that no further confirmation of this species' existence had been found since 1806.

The description is short and sweet, describing a distinctive cetacean spotted near what is now called Svalbard. While it is referred to as a dolphin, the animal's size - 30-36 ft - make it significantly larger than the biggest currently known dolphin, the killer whale. It's worth noting that, at this point in time, pretty much every cetacean that was not a baleen whale or sperm whale was assigned to the genus Delphinus.

Darker background to better show the teeth

 My favourite feature described on this whale is honestly the Beavis-esque lower jaw, and the concentric yellow rings kind of remind me of the Pokemon Umbreon. For the overall anatomy I was heavily influenced by Tom Jefferson's suggestion that the original description may have been describing a beaked whale, although I leaned more towards a Mesoplodon as opposed to Jefferson's suggestion of Hyperoodon.

This “dauphin” (dolphin) was described by Freminville, apparently from observations in the North Atlantic. No type specimen was collected. Jefferson (2021) listed this species as a nomen dubium in his review of dolphin and small whale nomenclature, but indicated it seemed to have more in common with beaked whales. We believe that this species likely refers to the northern bottlenose whale (Hyperoodon ampullatus). Most of the characters stated by Freminville fit that species: common in icy seas from 74–80°N; 10–12 m in length; small head; convex forehead; short, strong beak; dorsal fin close to tail; blow < 2 m tall. Even the mention of concentric circles on the forehead could refer to the lighter color and/or the flattened forehead of Hyperoodon bulls. The statement that it has 48–50 small teeth is puzzling, but northern bottlenose whales often have several dozen small vestigial teeth buried in the gums of both jaws. It is possible that one or more of these whales were examined and dissected. (Though this is not mentioned in the paper, Freminville likely had such opportunities, as vessels that he served on attacked English whalers—see Arvy, 1972.) Despite indications that this may very well be a junior synonym of Hyperoodon ampullatus, with no type specimen to confirm this, we keep it as a nomen dubium within the Ziphiidae for now

-  Nomenclature of the Larger Toothed Whales (Odontocetes)A Historical Review, 2023

 

 

As far as paper whales go, this species was not particularly persistent, I think likely due to how old the original account was an how much time passed without a second sighting. But this was one of the first phantom species I came across, and probably the most visually striking, which helped launch this current drawing series.

Delphinus rhinoceros - Rhinoceros Dolphin

Updated June 6, 2024

 “It is in these terms that MM. Quoy and Gaimard describe this species which they only glimpsed:

In the month of October 1819, going from the Sandwich Islands to New South Wales, we saw at 5° 28' north latitude many dolphins performing in troupes around the ship: everyone on board was surprised, like us, to see on their forehead a horn or fin curved backwards, as well as that on the back; the volume of the animal was almost double that of the common porpoise, and the top of its body, up to the dorsal, was spotted with black and white.

We focused on observing these dolphins throughout the time they accompanied us; but although they often came close to touching the prow of our corvette, having their upper bodies out of the water, their heads were so buried there that neither Mr. Arago nor we could distinguish whether their muzzle was short or elongated; their appearance could tell us nothing in this regard because they do not soar above the waters like other species. Based on their very particular conformation, we named them Rhinoceros Dolphins (Delphinus rhinoceros)”

-        Complements de Buffon, 1838, pages 620-621

from Quoy and Gaimard, 1824

the above drawing copied in Der Cetacean Oder Walthiere, 1846

 

The Rhinoceros Dolphin is probably one of the better known paper whales online, often labelled a “crypid whale” alongside the Alula Whale. So of course, I had to draw it.

Due to the circumstances of the sighting – namely, the dolphins’ refusal to let the seafarers get a good look at them – I didn’t have a ton of info to go off of. But I had a rough physical description and a location. (Also, I just want to acknowledge that my source quoted above is not the original source of the description. However, looking back at other sources quoted in Buffon leave me fairly confident that they copied the text of most of their French sources verbatim. And also I’m lazy.)

 

Size

The first thing to note was the dolphin’s size -“the volume of the animal was almost double that of the common porpoise." Now, does "volume" here refer to body mass, or body length? And does "common porpoise" refer to the obvious suspect, Phocoena phocoena, or was the original author one of those people who likes to conflate dolphins with porpoises? That's also hard to say. I've seen several old sources refer to various dolphin species as porpoises.

I personally decided to go with Occam's razor and assume "common porpoise" refers to Phocoena phocoena and made the assumption that "volume" refers to length because I feel the length of a swiftly moving cetacean is easier to gauge than body mass. Doubling a Harbour Porpoise's length gives us a length of 3 meters, and this factored greatly into my personal conclusion that the Rhinoceros Dolphin was a misidentified Risso's Dolphin. Raynal & Sylvestre seem to have come to this same conclusion in their 1991 paper Cetaceans with two dorsal fins.

However, in his 2021 paper, Tom Jefferson decides to interpret "common porpoise" as Tursiops truncatus, the Bottlenose Dolphin.

When I considered that "common porpoise" might be referring to a dolphin, my first thought was actually Delphinus delphis, the Common Dolphin, which I've seen used as a Banana For Scale in writing before. Long before Flipper came on the scene and made Bottlenose Dolphins a household name, Delphinus delphis was the archetypal dolphin in literature and art for a long time.

The logical way to resolve this, in my opinion, would be to read the original source (Quoy and Gaimard) and examine the context in which "porpoise" is used in that document. Does it look like the author is knowledgeable on cetaceans and knows the specific species "common porpoise" is usually applied to, or do they use the term "porpoise" to refer to other dolphin species within the text? Like I said, I haven't been able to find the original text. I'd like to assume this is what Jefferson did to come to his Tursiops conclusion, but he doesn't explain his rationale, so as of right now, I'm still split.

 

Location

The species was spotted between Hawaii and New South Wales, 5°28'. The exact longitude (East/West position) is not given.

Latitude and approximate position where the species was spotted

 

HOWEVER, the original description describes the corvette as traveling between "the Sandwich Islands" and New South Wales. I interpreted "Sandwich Islands" incorrectly as the South Sandwich Islands. Sticking a pin between there and NSW puts you squarely in the South Pacific, and so my original sketch resembles a Long-Finned Pilot Whale, a species found in that area.

Womp womp

 

Turns out what was once the "North Sandwich Islands" are now known by the more flattering name Hawaii. With this in mind, I decided to base my Rhino Dolphin on a False Killer Whale. However, I still retained some Pilot Whale features in the design to keep the species somewhat ambiguous.

Anatomy

I’m far from the first to redraw the Rhinoceros Dolphin, but the reason I did not give mine a long beak like a Bottlenose is because all other extant Odontocetes we currently know of that approach the Rhinoceros Dolphin’s size have a round face without a long beak.

And just to elaborate, I believe the ship-following and pod-forming behavior mentioned in the original description is characteristic of a delphinid, as opposed to a pygmy sperm whale, beaked whale, or baleen whale.

I didn’t really have any theories myself until I was nearly finished the drawing, when I decided to look again and see what delphinids matched my size estimate of 3 meters. An almost perfect match was the Risso's Dolphin. As it just so happens, the species is also native to where the Rhinoceros Dolphin was spotted.

 

photo from giraffa.co

Bold, white scars against dark grey skin is a signature of the species, acquired through the bites of other whales and the bite of their favourite prey, squid. Some elderly individuals have so many scars, they almost appear pure white.

As for the two dorsal fins, the most common explanation I see is probably also the most plausible - the pod that the crew observed were on the move and traveling quite close together, giving off the impression of multiple whales with more than one dorsal fin.

A pod of Risso's Dolphins traveling quite close together, Steve Sells, Flickr

Jefferson additionally posits in his 2021 paper that the Rhinoceros Dolphin could be "possibly a shark or mythical creature". 

One of my followers on Twitter made the suggestion to perhaps the Rhinoceros Dolphin was a Blaineville's Beaked Whale, and while I could argue the bow riding and pod-forming behaviors doesn't match beaked whales, I cannot be certain that these elements were not exaggerated in the original description. The location matches up, and the size would match Jefferson's estimate of 5-7 meters.

Blainville's Beaked Whale

 

The aforementioned 1991 paper Cetaceans with two dorsal fins examines the Rhinoceros Dolphin and several other cases of duel-dorsaled cetaceans captured in art, and goes so far as to suggest a new scientific name.

“We would propose the name of Cetodipterus rhinoceros if it would turn out to represent a new genus”

 As far as I can tell from my basic understanding of taxonomy, if the Rhinoceros Dolphin actually exists, this would be the name given to it upon collecting a holotype.

I could comment more on the 1991 paper, but in all honesty, its existence kind of confuses me. I have no idea what its authors are trying to prove. But if you are a cetaceans with two dorsal fins enthusiast, I suppose it's a must-read.

 

The Rhinoceros Dolphin making a cameo on The Secret Saturdays, a cartoon following a family of cryptozoologists.