Dear colleagues, The Smithsonian Institution's Marine Mammal Program is pleased to announce the availability of a new website designed specifically for aiding in the identification of beaked whale specimens. http://www.nmnh.si.edu/vert/mammals/beaked_whales/pages/main_menu.htm The objective of this website is to serve as a centralized resource for making morphological identifications of beaked whales. These pages include an introduction to the family Ziphiidae, information on beaked whale research, images of skulls and diagnostic characters for each species, links to museum research collections, and some bibliographic references. This project is an on-going collaborative effort with the marine mammal community, and will continue to draw from contributions from collaborators. With this website, we intend to enable more researchers and stranding responders to identify ziphiid species and to become more familiar with morphological variation within this taxonomic group by having access to reference specimens available online. Any comments, suggestions or contributions may be sent directly to Dee Allen (see signature below for contact information). We welcome your input. This project was made possible through the support of the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, as well as NOAA Fisheries and the Smithsonian Institution. Dee Allen Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History Marine Mammal Program P.O. Box 37012 Washington, DC 20013-7012 tel: 202.633.1247 fax: 202.786.2979 allend@si.edu http://www.nmnh.si.edu/vert/mammals/da.html http://www.nmnh.si.edu/vert/mammals/beaked_whales/pages/main_menu.htm