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
Baleen whale analysis by studies, such as the one by Takeshi Sasaki (of the Tokyo Institute of Technology) and colleagues, indicates certain rorquals, such as the humpback whale, "Megaptera novaeangliae", and the fin whale, "Balaenoptera physalus", are more closely related to the gray whale than they are to some other rorquals, such as the minke whale, "Balaenoptera acutorostrata". The taxonomic name "Mysticeti" ( apparently derives from a translation error in early copies of Aristotle's "Historia Animalium" (in Ancient Greek), in which "" ("ho mus to kētos", "the mouse, the whale so called") was mistakenly translated as "" ("ο mustikētos", "the Mysticetus"), which