Common minke whale this mistake during Foyn's whaling operations in the Varanger Fjord between 1868 and 1885." It has formerly been known as the little piked whale, the lesser or least rorqual, and the sharp-headed finner. American whalemen in the 19th century simply thought of them as "young finbacks" or a "Finback's calf", apparently under the impression that they were juveniles of their larger relative, the fin whale. They were also called zwergwal (German: "dwarf whale") or vågehval (Norwegian: "bay whale"). In Japan they are called koiwashi-kujira ("little sardine whale") or minku-kujira ("minke whale"). In Greenland they are known by the Danish name
Antarctic minke whale either species of minke whale were to each other. The American scientist Dale W. Rice supported these conclusions in his seminal work on marine mammal taxonomy, giving what he called the "Antarctic minke whale" ("B. bonaerensis", Burmeister, 1867), full specific status – this was followed by the International Whaling Commission a few years later. Other organizations followed suit. Antarctic and common minke whales diverged from each other in the Southern Hemisphere 4.7 million years ago, during a prolonged period of global warming in the early Pliocene which disrupted the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and created local pockets of upwelling, facilitating speciation