Updating the Cetacean Species List of Raja Ampat, Indonesia, with Additional Sightings of the Rarely Documented Omura’s Whale (Balaenoptera omurai)

For some morphologically similar species, it can be challenging to provide identification, particularly when they are observed in a fleeting encounter in the wild, and cetaceans are not an exception. Baleen whales exemplify this issue, as morphologically similar species can be easily confused (e.g., Omura’s whale [Balaenoptera omurai] and fin whale [Balaenoptera physalus]).

Omura’s whale is one of the least known cetacean species. It was relatively newly described as a distinct species (Wada et al., 2003; Sasaki et al., 2006) after previously being misclassified as a pygmy/dwarf form of Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera edeni) (Sasaki et al., 2006; Cerchio et al., 2015). Omura’s whale is distributed in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, with most doc mented occurrences in the eastern Indo-Pacific Ocean (de Vos, 2017; Cerchio et al., 2019)