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.
