Ziphius cavirostris - Cuvier's Beaked Whale

Cuvier's beaked whale, aka the goose-beaked whale, owns the distinctions of both the longest and deepest dive of any mammal in the world. The record was set by an individual who reached an incredible depth of 2 992 metres, not coming up for air for 2 hours and 18 minutes! While other whales and seals do reach extreme depths, it is not fully understood how they manage to avoid the ill-effects you'd expect being at such depths. Atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 1kg per square cm. 

Herbert Nitsch free-diving

Deep-diving mammals

Our bodies don't feel this pressure because our cells are made up mostly of water, which is not effected by changes in pressure, but our ears and lungs are filled with air and so are effected. That's why you feel discomfort in an aeroplane during take-off and landing, because the cavities can't adjust to the pressure changes quickly enough. Free divers famously shrink their lungs down to 'the size of oranges' when diving to depths of 100-200 metres (the world record is 214 metres, Herbert Nitsch 2007). The pressure increases by 1 atmosphere for every 10 metres beneath the water, so at 100 metres you are dealing with pressure 11 times that at the surface. When a ziphius gets down towards 3000 metres the pressure is enormous - around 300kg per square cm. Deep diving whales have ribcages that fold up and allow their lungs to shrink, and they hold huge amounts of oxygen in their myogloblin-rich blood, but even still it remains a mystery to science how these animals are able to cope with such depths. The food must be really good down their to make it worth the trouble! They eat squid and deep-sea fish and they go a long way to get them.

Ziphius the water-owl

The name ziphius comes from the the Greek Xiphos - meaning sword, and cavirostris means 'hollow beak'. In medieval mythology the ziphius was a monstrous water-owl. It was believed that the sword-like dorsal fin would pierce the hulls of ships and that its owl-like beak would gobble up sailors. This is something I'd certainly to explore in the book but I think its clear that there is no real connection between the monster and the whale in this instance. The Latin name was given to this animal by French anatomist Georges Cuvier, after whom it takes its common name, and if you're going to name an animal after a human being, you could do a lot worse than Georges Cuvier. He is known as the father of paleontology and among his many significant contributions to science and knowledge, he established extinction as a fact, expanded the Linnean taxonomy system, brought fossils and extant creatures into the same taxonomic system, and helped to establish the rudiments of biostratigraphy, so not a bad egg.

Skull of Cuvier's whale with the pair of
teeth extending from the mandible

Showing the pair of teeth

Cuvier's beaked whale is the only extant member of its genus, though it displays a lot of anatomical similarities to other beaked whales. One curious feature of these animals is their teeth. They have two large (about 2 inches), sharp teeth extending upwards from the back of the lower jaw, which are thought to be used in fights with each other more than for hunting. They have relatively small flippers which can be tucked neatly into little 'pockets' to reduce drag. They have a pair of throat grooves that expand to help them suck in their prey, making a noise like something from a horror movie. 

White patches are scars from cookie-cutter shark bites
(see blog on sei whale above)

They are so little known that, as far as I can tell, they have seldom appeared in lore, mythology or fiction of any kind, though I did find a sort cartoon illustration online created by someone calling herself 'Anime-Crazy266'. 

Rudy the cuvier's beaked whale
by Anime-Crazy266

I would love to see a full film with this character, called 'Rudy'. There is a rare bit of footage of these animals online, but naturally it's quite limited. Almost everything known about them has come from whales that have been stranded and died. There's a video here and some lovely footage of a mother and calf here