Common minke whale produce downswept calls of 250 to 50 Hz. The first written records attest to the active hunting of minke whales off Norway by 1100 A.D. By 1240 they began utilizing iron darts fired from crossbows that had been treated with the tissue of dead sheep infected with the bacterium "Clostridium". Introducing this infectious agent to a wound weakened the whale and after a couple days the men would return and lance it to death. This method of whaling continued to be used until the 1880s. Norwegian catching of minke whales from small fishing vessels started off Møre, western Norway, 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