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 | [63] |
| Balaenoptera physalus | (Linnaeus 1758) | Fin whale | [26] |
| Balaenoptera musculus | (Linnaeus 1758) | Blue whale | [19] |
| Balaenoptera borealis | Lesson 1828 | Sei whale | [32] |
| Balaenoptera edeni | Anderson 1879 | Bryde's whale | [37] |
| Megaptera novaeangliae | (Borowski 1781) | Humpback whale | [40] |
| Family Balaenidae—Right whales | |||
| Balaena mysticetus | Linnaeus 1758 | Bowhead whale | [49] |
| Eubalaena glacialis | (Borowski 1781) | Right whale | [52] |
| Suborder Odontoceti—Toothed whales | |||
| Family Ziphiidae | |||
| Mesoplodon bidens | (Sowerby 1804) | North Sea beaked whale | [82] |
| Mesoplodon densirostris | (Blainville in Desmarest 1817) | Dense-beaked whale | [80] |
| Mesoplodon europaeus | (Gervais 1855) | Antillean beaked whale | [78] |
| Mesoplodon mirus | True 1913 | True's beaked whale | [77] |
| Ziphius cavirostris | G. Cuvier 1823 | Goosebeaked whale | [70] |
| Hyperoodon ampullatus | (Forster 1770) | Northern bottlenosed whale | [67] |
| Family Physeteridae | |||
| Physeter catodon | Linnaeus 1758 | Sperm whale | [57] |
| Kogia breviceps | (Blainville 1838) | Pygmy sperm whale | [144] |
| Kogia simus | (Owen 1866) | Dwarf sperm whale | [148] |
| Family Monodontidae | |||
| Monodon monoceros | Linnaeus 1758 | Narwhal | [102] |
| Delphinapterus leucas | (Pallas 1776) | Beluga | [99] |
| Family Stenidae | |||
| Steno bredanensis | (G. Cuvier in Lesson 1828) | Rough-toothed dolphin | [135] |
| Sotalia guianensis | (P. J. van Beneden 1864) | Guiana dolphin | [132] |
| Family Delphinidae | |||
| Peponocephala electra | (Gray 1846) | Many-toothed blackfish | [142] |
| Feresa attenuata | Gray 1874 | Pygmy killer whale | [138] |
| Pseudorca crassidens | (Owen 1846) | False killer whale | [88] |
| Globicephala melaena | (Traill 1809) | Atlantic pilot whale | [91] |
| Globicephala macrorhynchus | Gray 1846 | Short-finned pilot whale | [94] |
| Orcinus orca | (Linnaeus 1758) | Killer whale | [84] |
| Lagenorhynchus albirostris | Gray 1846 | White-beaked dolphin | [126] |
| Lagenorhynchus acutus | (Gray 1828) | Atlantic white-sided dolphin | [123] |
| Lagenodelphis hosei | Fraser 1956 | Fraser's dolphin | [120] |
| Tursiops truncatus | (Montagu 1821) | Bottlenosed dolphin | [128] |
| Grampus griseus | (G. Cuvier 1812) | Grampus | [96] |
| Stenella longirostris | Gray 1828 | Spinner dolphin | [110] |
| Stenella frontalis | (G. Cuvier 1829) | Bridled dolphin | [108] |
| Stenella coeruleoalba | (Meyen 1833) | Striped dolphin | [113] |
| Stenella plagiodon | (Cope 1866) | Spotted dolphin | [104] |
| Delphinus delphis | Linnaeus 1758 | Saddleback dolphin | [116] |
| Family Phocoenidae | |||
| Phocoena phocoena | (Linnaeus 1758) | Harbor porpoise | [150] |
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.[6] 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.
[6] Most common names are based on some characteristic of the species (e.g., spotted dolphin, striped dolphin, rough-toothed dolphin); others are the names of authors of the species (e.g., True's beaked whale) or of habitats or macrohabitats which they inhabit (e.g., North Sea beaked whale and harbor porpoise); the origins of some common names, however, are less obvious (e.g., dense-beaked whale), and of less use in field references.
