Common minke whale juvenile female minke whale died from domoic acid poisoning by ingesting northern anchovies – a known domoic acid vector – during an intense "Pseudo-nitzschia" bloom off Southern California. In March 2013, a severely emaciated juvenile male stranded at Nieuwpoort, Belgium. It was believed to have died after a prolonged starvation due to compacted plastic debris obstructing its digestive tract – the first confirmed case of death due to the ingestion of litter in a baleen whale. In May 2014, a individual that stranded at Atlantic City, New Jersey, tested positive for morbillivirus. Several minke whales have been briefly held in
Antarctic minke whale dark gray dorsally and clean white (occasionally light gray to gray) ventrally with a thin, dusky margin. Some small, dark gray "speckling" may be present on the body. Antarctic minkes lack the bright white, transverse "flipper band" of the common minke and the white "shoulder blaze" and bright white "flipper patch" (occupying the proximal two-thirds of the flipper) of the dwarf minke. Instead, their narrow, pointed flippers, about one-sixth to one-eighth of the total body length, are normally either a plain light gray with an almost white leading edge and a darker gray trailing edge or two-toned, with a thin