Talk:Cuvier's beaked whale

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2020 and 31 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Watkins-Jorgensen.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:52, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Question
Why does searching "Water Owl" redirect me to this page? There's no explanation in the article. Robin Chen (talk) 06:52, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

yes, that is strange. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 03:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Have added a section, albeit small, after a quick bit of reading about this. --13tsf13 (talk) 21:54, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I changed it. How would an obscure species of whale only scientifically described in the 19th century have anything to do with a mythical sea creature from the middle ages exactly?? OM2003 (talk) 19:43, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I have tried to edit this issue about the "Water Owl" (!?) which I think is very distracting and ––more or less–– irrelevant. Watkins-Jorgensen (talk) 21:54, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I have removed mention of the "Water Owl" bit seeing as it is a bit of frivolous trivia about a mythological creature that doesn't exist on wiki backed by a lower-quality source. This article still has a lot of work to do, though. --TangoFett (talk) 03:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

I want to thank my wonderful professor Dr. Alan Shabel of U.C. Berkeley for inspiring me; likewise–– Philip Georgakakos our GSI (who is now just getting a Doctorate) who brought up the Cuvier's Beaked Whale in the first place, described it so excitingly and definitely intrigued me with the descriptions, always inspiring; and our other GSI, reader and patient person with the cool insights,( also just getting her doctorate!) Jenna Baughman. Looking forward to more questions and ideas! Watkins-Jorgensen (talk) 07:31, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Maintenance Templates
December 26th, 2020: I object to the text box talking about multiple issues.( Lack of respect or politeness!) Can someone get in contact about this? There's a lot of research in this, nothing loose-goosey or suppositional and the sources are cited, and listed.Watkins-Jorgensen (talk) 01:39, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I've reinserted the maintenance templates that were previously applied. Please don't take them personally; they intend no disrespect for you or the article you've invested in, but they each are still applicable to the current state of the article. Take a look at WP:MTR for more info. Retswerb (talk) 07:29, 28 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm really delighted to see this WP entry on Cuvier's beaked whale -- I think it's a great start. I'm happy to help a bit with the copyediting. As a first suggestion, I'd like to move the taxonomy section to the top & merge it with the section labelled 'Discovery'. I followed links to some of the other beaked whales entries & several of them have done it that way. Thoughts? Redwidgeon (talk) 20:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Agree with Redwidgeon. A review of good cetacean articles reveals a trend of following lead summary first with a "Taxonomy" section, with a "Description" section after that. azwaldo (talk) 16:06, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I went ahead and edited the lead text to make it more succinct and hopefully more understandable to a lay reader, but I did not (to my knowledge) change the meaning of the original. Hopefully this improves the article. Fredlesaltique (talk) 01:03, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I have edited the "Discovery" section by paring the text down to its most notable elements; hoping to improve readability, and make a better fit within the "Taxonomy" section. (And, many thanks to Watkins-Jorgensen for the heavy lift in this article!) azwaldo (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 16:57, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Renamed the "Discovery" section to "Taxonomy" as suggested by Redwidgeon, and removed the paragraph naming the many other beaked whales. Next, removing the paragraph tagged for citation needed from "Whaling and fishing" section, as I was unable to find support for the flagged statement and the bulk of the paragraph relates to another species entirely. azwaldo (talk) 21:52, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks deeply Azwaldo, Redwidgeon, and Fredlesaltique for the great comments and explanations. Plus noble work! Gros bisous ! Nanlelecteur W-J Watkins-Jorgensen (talk) 02:10, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

name origin
The article notes that the genus name Ziphius originates from the greek xiphos (ξίφος) which may be ultimately true, but according to the citation (Cuvier, ref 12): "le nom de ZIPHIUS [sic] employé par quelques auteurs du moyen âge (voyez Gesner [sic], I, p. 209) pour un cétacé qu'ils n'ont point déterminé, et je nommerai cette espèce ziphius cavirostris [sic]". If you looking for the Gessner citation, I can find it on page 209-210 of the 2nd edition of Historia animalium in liber 4 not 1. FWIW, the illustration in Gessner's entry is a reproduction of a section of Olaus' Carta Marina with a figure labeled Ziphius and I think it is likely this is just a mis-transliteration of ξίφιος (xiphios, swordfish and yes obviously related to the word ξίφος). Anyway what I actually propose is removing the reference to ξίφος/xiphos "sword" as the origin of the genus name, since that's not the stated reason from Cuvier for choosing the name?

Similarly the explanation of cavirostris is misleading in the introduction. Cuvier (ref 12) is referring to a bony structure (cavity) anterior of the nares (the bones of the nose). It isn't really visible as far as I know externally. This structure is now know as the prenarial basin and is only very distinct on adult males. The mention under Taxonomy section is a bit more precise.

I didn't make a direct edit, because I see this often repeated even in at least one field guide so wanted to seek feedback first maybe someone else knows more? Xarzin (talk) 18:17, 6 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi, I was adding missing citations to the page and saw your note here. Your points seem both reasonable and supported by sources, so I have made changes to reflect them.  Feel free to improve my phrasing as you wish. MaryMO (AR) (talk) 15:03, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Common name
An open letter has been published calling on the scientific community to use goose-beaked whale for this species due to Cuvier's racism and misogyny. See also this post by one of the authors, Robin Baird, on the topic.

Is there consensus on how situations like this should be handled? Certainly Cuvier's beaked whale will have been more common up until now, but that could change moving forward. With the thick-billed longspur, the title's change seemed predicated on professional recognition of the new common name, including its use in scientific articles/literature. The open letter was published in Marine Mammal Science (the journal of the Society for Marine Mammalogy), and the Society usually updates their list of marine mammal species/subspecies around this time, so they could potentially comment on it soon. I'm unsure how quick the MDD or IUCN are to comment on, change, or update common names. YellowstoneLimestone (talk) 02:51, 22 June 2024 (UTC)