Abstract

Two crania and a rostrum were recovered from Heard Island by the 1985 Australian National Antarctic Expedition to that island. The specimens were assigned to three species, two of which, Globicephala melaena and Mesoplodon layardi, are confirmed other than by sighting reports as occurring in Antarctic Seas. The third species, Phocaena spinipinnis, of which cranial measurements are given, was previously known only from coastal South American waters and is shown to have a much wider distribution than hitherto suspected.

[The porpoise skull was later reidentified as a spectacled porpoise: http://porpoise.org/library/porpoise-australophocaena-dioptrica-previously-identified-phocoena-spinipinnis-heard-island/ ]