Arnoux's beaked whale

noun

Ar·noux's beaked whale

är-ˈnüz-

: an uncommon beaked whale (Berardius arnuxii) of temperate to subpolar waters of the southern hemisphere that has four teeth in the lower jaw and is closely related to Baird's beaked whale

called also southern four-toothed whale

Word History

Etymology

after Louis Arnoux †1867 French marine surgeon and naturalist

Note: Arnoux was a naval surgeon aboard the corvette Le Rhin, which began a circumnavigation of the earth via the South Pacific in 1842. According to Louis Georges Duvernoy ("Mémoire sur les caractères ostéologiques des genres nouveaux ou des espèces nouvelles de cétacés vivants ou fossiles," Annales des sciences naturelles, Troisième série—Zoologie, tome 15 [1851], p. 52) Arnoux collected a skull and fin of the species on the beach at Akaroa, Banks Peninsula, New Zealand during the voyage of Le Rhin. The skull, delivered to the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris on October 20, 1846, through the efforts of Le Rhin's captain, Auguste Bérard, was the basis of Duvernoy's description and naming of the species, as Berardius arnuxii (Latinizations of both Bérard's and Arnoux's surnames).

First Known Use

1910, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler

The first known use of Arnoux's beaked whale was in 1910

See more words from the same year

Cite this Entry

Style

“Arnoux's beaked whale.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Arnoux%27s%20beaked%20whale. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.

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