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
Drift whale later. Wrapped in a thick blanket of blubber, the carcass retains its mammalian heat, and the process of decomposition takes place relatively quickly; once ashore, there is a risk of the swollen whale exploding. That is a rare event, but more commonly, the build-up of pressure inside the abdominal cavity can lead to the extrusion of the whale's penis through the genital slit. A similar phenomenon, postmortem fetal extrusion, can occur to the carcass of a pregnant whale: Tim Flannery wrote that "A rotting whale could fill with gas to bursting, ejecting a fetus the size of a motor vehicle