Antarctic minke whale were marked and recovered in January. On 20 January 1972, a broken-off bill of a marlin ("Makaira" sp.) was found embedded in the rostrum of a minke whale caught in the Southern Ocean at , providing indirect evidence of migration to the warmer tropical or subtropical waters of the Indian Ocean. Earlier estimates suggested that there were several hundred thousand minke whales in the Southern Ocean. In 2012, the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission agreed upon a best estimate of 515,000. The Report of the Scientific Committee acknowledged that this estimate is subject to some degree of negative
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