Rounded and small pectoral fins with broad flukes. There is no ridge on the back and there are only two, deep, well marked throat grooves. Colour is dark grey above becoming darker with age, fading to a light grey shade below. There are 230 yellowish-white baleen plates up to 70 centimetres long in each side of the upper jaw. Size average is 1.5 metres at birth to 6.1 metres and 4.5 tonnes at maturity.
Females are again slightly larger than the males.
Known only in the Southern Hemisphere, from Australia and New Zealand to South Africa, Argentina, the Falkland Islands and the Coast north of Antarctica. The Minke Whale is the smallest of the rorquals. It has a pointed head with a lower protruding jaw and a simple prominent ridge from the tip of the upper jaw to the blowholes. A well shaped and graceful whale, black on the back from the beak to just behind the long, slender pectoral fins, blending to grey and black again at the flukes. The underside is white.