Oceanic dolphin another indication of animal intelligence. Killer whales have the second largest brain mass of any animal on earth, next to the sperm whale. The brain to body mass ratio in some is second only to humans. Self-awareness is seen, by some, to be a sign of highly developed, abstract thinking. Self-awareness, though not well-defined scientifically, is believed to be the precursor to more advanced processes like meta-cognitive reasoning (thinking about thinking) that are typical of humans. Research in this field has suggested that cetaceans, among others, possess self-awareness. The most widely used test for self-awareness in animals is the mirror
Mesoplodont whale what effect this has on the population. Longman's beaked whale ("Indopacetus pacificus", also known as the Indo-Pacific beaked whale or the tropical bottlenose whale) was originally assigned to "Mesoplodon", but Joseph Curtis Moore placed it in its own genus, "Indopacetus", a taxonomic assignment which has been followed by all researchers. Two extinct species of "Mesoplodon" are known, "M. posti" and "M. slangkopi". Mesoplodont whale Mesoplodont whales are fifteen species of toothed whale in the genus Mesoplodon, making it the largest genus in the cetacean order. Two species were described as recently as 1991 (pygmy beaked whale) and 2002 (Perrin's beaked