The pygmy right whale looks like a miniature version of a baleen whale, hence the name “pygmy.” It’s the smallest of the filter-feeding whales, weighing in at just under 1,000 pounds. Rarely observed and shy by nature, it’s found in the temperate waters of the Southern Hemisphere.
The pygmy has long been called a right whale because people thought that it looked like one, but many researchers have long disputed this notion because of a number of differences. For example, the pygmy right whale is sleeker and has a dorsal fin, whereas the right whale does not. These differences and others have puzzled researchers for decades.
“The pygmy right whale has long captured the imagination of people because it’s a tiny version of a giant whale,” says Ludovic Dutoit, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.
