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
Marine Mammal Program
tel: 202.633.1247
fax: 202.786.2979
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/vert/mammals/da.html
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/vert/mammals/beaked_whales/pages/main_menu.htm