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Animal profile
Ziphius cavirostris
Cuvier's beaked whale is a robust deep-diving whale of five to seven metres with a short beak and a gently sloping forehead. Adult males are heavily scarred and bear two teeth at the tip of the lower jaw. It feeds on deep-water squid and fish and is rarely seen at the surface.
Satellite tags on Cuvier's beaked whales off California have logged a dive of 3 hours and 42 minutes, and a separate record depth of 2,992 metres. Both are the deepest and longest dives recorded for any mammal.
Satellite tags on Cuvier's beaked whales off California have recorded a dive to nearly 3,000 metres and, separately, a submergence exceeding three hours, both far beyond what the species' oxygen stores were assumed to allow.