Minke whale "minkehval", possibly after a Norwegian whaler named Meincke, who mistook a northern minke whale for a blue whale. Most modern classifications split the minke whale into two species; Taxonomists further categorize the common minke whale into two or three subspecies; the North Atlantic minke whale, the North Pacific minke whale and dwarf minke whale. All minke whales are part of the rorquals, a family that includes the humpback whale, the fin whale, the Bryde's whale, the sei whale and the blue whale. The junior synonyms for "B. acutorostrata" are "B. davidsoni" (Scammon 1872), "B. minimia" (Rapp, 1837) and "B. rostrata"
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