page_title: Common minke whale
section_title: Reproduction
hierarchical_section_title: Common minke whale / Biology / Reproduction
caption_attribution_description: Whale penis. Balaenoptera acutorostrata Technique of glycerination on display at the Museum of Veterinary Anatomy, FMVZ USP. This file was published as the result of a partnership between the Museum of Veterinary Anatomy FMVZ USP, the RIDC NeuroMat and the Wikimedia Community User Group Brasil. This GLAM project is reported. Photography: Museum of Veterinary Anatomy FMVZ USP. Author: Wagner Souza e Silva.
context_page_description: The common minke whale or northern minke whale is a species of minke whale within the suborder of baleen whales.
  It is the smallest species of the rorquals and the second smallest species of baleen whale. Although first ignored by whalers due to its small size and low oil yield, it began to be exploited by various countries beginning in the early 20th century. As other species declined larger numbers of common minke whales were caught, largely for their meat. It is now one of the primary targets of the whaling industry. There is a dwarf form in the Southern Hemisphere.
  This species is known in the fossil record from the Pliocene epoch to the Quaternary period.
context_section_description: Common minke whales are sexually mature at about six to eight years of age for females and about six to seven years for males. Females are promiscuous. After a gestation period of 10 months, a single 2.6 m (8.5 ft) calf is born – only one out of 79 mature females during a study of minke whales off Iceland had twin fetuses, an 8.7 m (29 ft) female caught in July 2006 which had a 34 cm (13 in) male and a 32 cm (13 in) female. The calf is weaned after a period of six months. Peak conception is February in the North Atlantic, late February to mid-March for the "O stock" (which migrates along the eastern coast of Japan to the Okhotsk Sea), and between October and November for the "J stock" (which occurs in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and Sea of Japan, and migrates to the southern Okhotsk Sea in the spring, where it mixes with the O stock). Peak calving is December in the North Atlantic, December to January in the North Pacific, and May to July for the J stock. The calving interval is only a year, so females are often simultaneously pregnant and lactating. Females reach physical maturity perhaps as early as 13 years of age; another study suggested that growth ceases for both sexes when they have 15 to 20 growth layers in their tympanic bullae, which may correspond to about 15 to 20 years of age. Both sexes can live to about 50 years of age – the oldest in a study of Icelandic minke whales were 42 years for females and 47 years for males, respectively.
caption: Whale penis (Balaenoptera acutorostrata)
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