Gray's Beaked Whale - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The species was first described in 1876 by Julius von Haast, director of the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand. He named it after the British taxonomist John Edward Gray. His description was based on three skulls he had received in May 1875 from a William Hood, Esq., who had retrieved them from three specimens that were part of a group of 28 individuals that had stranded on Waitangi Beach, Chatham Island, in the summer of 1874-75.