Dolphin This term has often been misused in the US, mainly in the fishing industry, where all small cetaceans (dolphins and porpoises) are considered porpoises, while the fish "dorado" is called dolphin fish. In common usage the term 'whale' is used only for the larger cetacean species, while the smaller ones with a beaked or longer nose are considered 'dolphins'. The name 'dolphin' is used casually as a synonym for bottlenose dolphin, the most common and familiar species of dolphin. There are six species of dolphins commonly thought of as whales, collectively known as blackfish: the killer whale, the melon-headed whale,
Cryptid whale Another argued hypothesis is that that pod was part of an inbred population, which led to the mutation. Another possibility is that Quoy and Gaimard observed specimens which were neither deformed nor members of an unknown species or population, but rather mistaken identification of a pair of beaked whales that, by perspective, appeared to be one single creature. The high-finned sperm whale, or the high-finned cachalot, is an alleged variant or relative of the known sperm whale, "Physeter macrocephalus", with an unusually tall dorsal fin from the North Atlantic. The physician Sir Robert Sibbald, in 1687, described an alleged stranded