Common minke whale in turn, was fathered by a North Atlantic common minke, demonstrating that back-crossing is possible between hybrids of the two species. The common minke whale is the smallest of the rorquals, and one of the smallest baleen whales (second smallest only to the Pygmy right whale). In the North Atlantic, Norwegian whaling vessels in 1940 allegedly caught individuals of up to in length, but they were likely only measured visually in comparison to objects of known dimensions aboard the ships themselves – the longest caught in subsequent years were typically only up to in length. In the North Pacific, Soviet
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