Omuras WhaleThe Omuras Whale (actually it is Omura’s whale, but I had to adjust it for programming reasons) was discovered and described in Nature by three Japanese scientists in 2003(1)! The finding of this new species was a result of the Japanese research whaling. DNA of hunted whales was used for analysis and led to the discovery of this new species. Additional DNA studies were carried out and in 2006, the IWC (International Whaling Coalition) recognised this whale as a new species(2). Little to nothing is known about this whale, which looks similar to the Bryde’s whale and the Eden’s whale. Actually, the Omuras whale was formerly classified as small form of Bryde’s whale. Yet, researchers found in 2006 that the newly discovered whale species represents an ancient evolutionary lineage. The study(3) concludes the following: “Our data suggest that B. omurai evolved as an ancient independent lineage that diverged much earlier than B. borealis, B. brydei and B. edeni, which were previously believed to be closely related to B. omurai.” The 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species(4) has set the status of the Omura’s whale as data deficient (DD). This means that there is not enough information to evaluate the risk of extinction. DD is a not a category of threat. More information would be needed to possibly classify this whale as a threatened species.
(1) Wada, S., Oishi, M., and Yamada, T.K. 2003. A newly discovered species of living baleen whales. Nature 426: 278–281. (2) Perrin, W. F. and Brownell, R. L., JR. Proposed Updates to the List of Recognised Species of Cetaceans. IWC Document SC/59/O15. (3) Sasaki, T., Nikaido, M., Wada, S., Yamada, T.K., Cao, Y., Hasegawa, M., and Okada, N. 2006. Balaenoptera omurai is a newly discovered baleen whale that represents an ancient evolutionary lineage. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 41(1): 40–52. (4) Cetacean update of the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. PDF, retrieved on
2008-12-15.
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