Antarctic minke whale pioneer Svend Foyn and led by Henrik Johan Bull, managed to harpoon at least three minke whales in the Antarctic between December 1894 and January 1895. Two were saved, both being used for fresh meat (one had only yielded two barrels of blubber). In December 1923, when the men of the first modern whaling expedition to visit the Ross Sea saw "a number of spouts" after leaving the ice edge they were soon disgusted to find out that they from lowly minke whales. The few caught by the British in the 1950s were taken more for curiosity than anything else.
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