Hyperoodon – Bottlenose whale

The deep-diving cousins of dolphins—but don’t let the name fool you. They are not the common bottlenose dolphin you see on TV. They’re beaked whales with two species: the Northern bottlenose whale in the North Atlantic and the Southern bottlenose whale in colder southern seas. Both wear the same “look”: a long, bottle-shaped beak; a short, curved fin; and a big, rounded forehead called a melon. Older males can turn pale on the face so it looks like they’re wearing a white helmet.

Unlike many whales, they don’t use a mouth full of teeth to grab prey. In fact, only two small teeth sit at the tip of the lower jaw, and they usually show in adult males. These whales are suction feeders—they flare their lips, open wide, and vacuum in squid and fish like living plungers. It’s neat and fast, perfect for life in the dark sea where meals move quickly.

Deep diving is their superpower. Bottlenose whales can slip below a kilometer (over half a mile) and stay down for more than an hour, hunting in cold, black water where sunlight never reaches. To do this, they move calmly, save energy, and store lots of oxygen in their blood and muscles before the dive.

At the surface they often “log,” lying still like a floating tree trunk while they rest and refill their lungs. Their big head helps with sound. They send out rapid clicks to “see” with their ears (echolocation), the way bats do in the air. The sound bounces off squid and rocks, and the echoes draw a simple map in the whale’s mind. Their lower jaw carries special fat that works like a sound wire, guiding echoes to the ear. This sound sense lets them hunt where eyes don’t help at all.