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Balaenoptera musculus (blue whale)

Mammalia - Cetacea - Balaenopteridae

Taxonomy
Balaena musculus was named by Linnaeus (1758) [No type specimen designated (Hershkovitz, 1966).]. It is extant. Its type specimen is 1. Its type locality is Firth of Forth, which is in a Holocene coastal horizon in the United Kingdom.

It was recombined as Rorqualus musculus by Cuvier (1836), Gervais (1852) and Hassanin et al. (2012); it was synonymized subjectively with Balaenoptera physalus by Gray (1846) and Hershkovitz (1966); it was recombined as Balaenoptera musculus by Van Beneden and Gervais (1880), Trouessart (1904), Thomas (1911), Turner (1912), Oliver (1922), Scheffer and Rice (1963), Barnes (1977), Vidal (1991), Rice (1998), Bergqvist et al. (1999), Mead and Brownell (2005), Agnarsson and May-Collado (2008), Marx (2011), Tsai et al. (2014), Gol'din and Steeman (2015), Marx and Fordyce (2015) and Govender and Marx (2023).

Synonyms
Synonymy list
YearName and author
1758Balaena musculus Linnaeus p. 76
1804Balaenoptera jubartes Lacépède p. 120
1836Rorqualus musculus Cuvier p. 334
1842Balaenoptera indica Blyth
1846Balaenoptera australis Gray p. 20
1847Physalus sibbaldii Gray p. 92
1850Physalus australis Gray p. 43
1852Rorqualus musculus Gervais p. 157
1864Physalus latirostris Flower pp. 410-414
1864Physalus sibbaldii Gray p. 222
1864Sibbaldus borealis Gray p. 223
1865Sibbaldius antarcticus Burmeister
1866Cuvierius sibbaldii Gray p. 160
1866Physalus australis Gray p. 161
1866Physalus indicus Gray p. 162
1866Sibbaldius borealis Gray p. 171
1866Sibbaldius antarcticus Gray p. 381
1868Cuvierius sibbaldii Gray p. 3
1868Sibbaldius antarcticus Gray p. 3
1868Sibbaldius borealis Gray p. 3
1869Balaenoptera sulfureus Cope
1869Sibbaldius sulfureus Scammon and Cope p. 20
1871Balaenoptera intermedia Burmeister
1874Stenobalaena xanthogaster Gray p. 305
1875Physalus australis Hector p. 257
1880Balaenoptera musculus Van Beneden and Gervais p. 172
1904Balaenoptera indica Trouessart p. 784
1904Balaenoptera musculus Trouessart p. 784
1904Balaenoptera sulfurea Trouessart p. 784
1911Balaenoptera musculus Thomas p. 156
1912Balaenoptera musculus Turner p. 31
1912Balaenoptera sibbaldi Turner p. 39
1922Balaenoptera musculus Oliver p. 561
1963Balaenoptera musculus Scheffer and Rice p. 9
1966Balaenoptera brevicauda Ichihara
1977Balaenoptera musculus Barnes p. 323 figs. Table 1
1991Balaenoptera musculus Vidal p. 6
1998Balaenoptera musculus Rice p. 77
1999Balaenoptera musculus Bergqvist et al. p. 31
2005Balaenoptera musculus Mead and Brownell p. 725
2008Balaenoptera musculus Agnarsson and May-Collado p. 981 figs. Fig. 5
2011Balaenoptera musculus Marx p. 83 figs. Figure 2
2012Rorqualus musculus Hassanin et al. p. 43 figs. Fig. 1
2014Balaenoptera musculus Tsai et al. p. 86
2015Balaenoptera musculus Gol'din and Steeman p. 13 figs. Figure 10
2015Balaenoptera musculus Marx and Fordyce p. 4 figs. Figure 2
2023Balaenoptera musculus Govender and Marx p. 5

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RankNameAuthor
kingdomAnimalia()
Bilateria
EubilateriaAx 1987
Deuterostomia
phylumChordataHaeckel 1874
subphylumVertebrata
superclassGnathostomata
Osteichthyes()
subclassSarcopterygii()
subclassDipnotetrapodomorpha(Nelson 2006)
subclassTetrapodomorpha()
Tetrapoda
Reptiliomorpha
Anthracosauria
subclassAmphibiosauriaKuhn 1967
Cotylosauria()
Amniota
subclassSynapsida
Therapsida()
infraorderCynodontia()
Mammaliamorpha
Mammaliaformes
classMammalia
Theriamorpha(Rowe 1993)
Theriiformes()
RankNameAuthor
Trechnotheria
Cladotheria
Zatheria
subclassTribosphenida()
subclassTheria
Eutheria()
Placentalia
Boreoeutheria
Laurasiatheria
Scrotifera
Euungulata
Artiodactylamorpha
Artiodactyla()
Whippomorpha
orderCetacea
Pelagiceti
Neoceti
suborderMysticeti
Chaeomysticeti()
Balaenomorpha
superfamilyThalassotherii
familyBalaenopteridae
genusBalaenoptera
speciesmusculus()

If no rank is listed, the taxon is considered an unranked clade in modern classifications. Ranks may be repeated or presented in the wrong order because authors working on different parts of the classification may disagree about how to rank taxa.

Balaenoptera musculus Linnaeus 1758 [blue whale]
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Invalid names: Balaenoptera australis Gray 1846 [synonym], Balaenoptera brevicauda Ichihara 1966 [synonym], Balaenoptera indica Blyth 1842 [synonym], Balaenoptera intermedia Burmeister 1871 [synonym], Balaenoptera jubartes Lacépède 1804 [synonym], Balaenoptera sulfureus Cope 1869 [synonym], Cuvierius latirostris Flower 1864 [synonym], Physalus sibbaldii Gray 1847 [synonym], Sibbaldius antarcticus Burmeister 1865 [synonym], Sibbaldius sulfureus Scammon and Cope 1869 [synonym], Sibbaldus borealis Gray 1864 [synonym]
Diagnosis
No diagnoses are available