In the late 1970s eight Balaenoptera specimens of unknown identity were caught in the lower latitudinal Indo-Pacific waters by Japanese research whaling vessels. The combination of the allozyme patterns and physical maturity of the eight specimens separated them from all acknowledged Balaenoptera species. In September 1998 we collected a medium-sized baleen whale carcass on a coastal island in the Sea of Japan. This specimen and the previously collected eight specimens resembled Balaenoptera physalus (fin whale) in external appearance but were much smaller. Comparison of external morphology, osteology and mitochondrial DNA data grouped the nine specimens as a single species but separated them from all known baleen whale species. Therefore, here we describe a new species of Balaenoptera, which is characterized by its unique cranial morphology, its small number of baleen plates, and by its distant molecular relationships with all of its congeners. Our analyses also separated Balaenoptera brydei (Bryde's whale) and Balaenoptera edeni (Eden's whale) into two distinct species, raising the number of known living Balaenoptera species to eight.

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Two multiplex PCR amplifications were performed to analyse six microsatellite loci of Schlegel's black rockfish, Sebastes schlegeli, an important commercial fish in the northern part of Japan and an important species for the stock enhancement program in this area. We analysed 67 wild samples from Yamada Bay, Iwate Prefecture, Japan. The observed genotype frequencies agreed with the Hardy–Weinberg expectations at all loci, and the observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.072 to 0.897.

Thin-layer isoelectric focusing was applied to the identification of whale (Cetacea) species by using water-soluble sarcoplasmic proteins of skeletal muscles. Twenty-eight samples consisting of 4 species (10 samples) of baleen whales (Mysticeti) and 8 species (18 samples) of toothed whales (Odontoceti) were analyzed. Each sample (approximately 1 g) was electrophoresed with Ampholine PAGplate, pH 3.5-9.5. The electrophoretic profiles were species-specific on the 4 toothed whale species that did not have a marked intra-species difference, and all 4 baleen whale species. However, the profiles were not specific on the 4 other dolphin species, even though they were discriminable from the other 4 toothed whale species. Numerical values of pls and relative peak heights were obtained by densitometric analysis of the isoelectro-focused protein bands. The bands were also species-specific for the 8 toothed whale species mentioned. The values may be applicable to species identification without the need for a standard sample, which may not be readily obtainable. Experiments on test samples of minke and sei whales showed that bloodletting with ice water made the densities of isoelectro-focused bands thinner, although species identification was still possible by using the Inside part of muscles. Heat treatment at below 60°C for 10 min caused little denaturation; at higher temperatures the protein bands were diminished in a temperature-dependent fashion. Therefore, the present isoelectric focusing analysis should be applicable to small samples of whale meat, excluding several species of dolphins.

Genetic diŠerentiation between samples of Ommastrephes bartramii collected from the North Paciˆc (n＝50) and the South Atlantic (n＝50) was examined using nucleotide sequence variation of 506 bp of the mitochondrial

Liquid chromatography(LC) was applied to identify whale species by analyzing water-soluble sarcoplasmic proteins in skeletal muscles. Twenty-five samples from four baleen whale species (fin whale, sei whale, Bryde's whale, and minke whale) and eight toothed whale species (sperm whale, Baird's beaked whale, short-finned pilot whale, Dall's porpoise, northern right whale dolphin, Pacific white-sided dolphin, common dolphin, and striped dolphin) were analyzed. Water-soluble sarcoplasmic proteins were extracted from each sample and analyzed using a UV-VIS spectrophotometric detector at 280 nm and a photodiode array detector. The chromatographic profiles of each sample showed distinctive qualitative and quantitative characteristics for each whale species, making species identification possible. A photodiode array detector was useful for further accurate identification of whale species by obtaining the absorption spectra of separated protein peaks. These results suggest that the LC method is readily applicable to rapid, simple, and reliable identification of whale species.

During the process of the recent description of a new balaenopterid species, Omura's whale, Balaenoptera omurai Wada, Oishi et Yamada, 2003, the authors proposed to differentiate the so-called "Bryde's whale", then defined collectively as Balaenoptera edeni Anderson, 1878/9 into Eden's whale, B. edeni and Bryde's whale (sensu stricto), Balaenoptera brydei Olsen, 1913. In their project investigating middle sized balaenopterid whales in Taiwan and Thailand, the authors found many specimens that could be classified into the three species. In addition to the characteristics of the vertex of the skull, the morphology of the lateral surface of the braincase around the alisphenoid has been established as a means of distinguishing among the three species as the specimens for comparison has increased. The balaenopterid specimens, formerly identified as the so-called "Bryde's whale", B. edeni which are preserved in the Wakayama Prefectural Museum of Natural History (Wakayama specimen) and Kitsuki City Library in Oita Prefecture (Kitsuki specimen), are now judged in fact to be Eden's whales, B. edeni based on the comparison of the vertex and alisphenoid morphology of the formerly described specimens, including the holotype of B. edeni.

Genotype frequency information for one or more loci is used within a Bayesian modelling framework to assign relative probabilities to alternative stock-structure hypotheses using the Bayes factor approach. This framework has advantages over maximum-likelihood estimation as it provides the information needed to select amongst hypotheses. For primarily illustrative purposes, the approach is applied to the data for the Adh-1 and Gpi loci for sub-areas 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11 for North Pacific minke whales. The results confirm those of previous studies that there are (at least) two stocks to the east and west of Japan. In contrast, the results support the hypothesis of a single stock in sub-areas 7, 8 and 9 unless a priori the allele frequencies for stocks that are adjacent spatially are likely to be similar. This last result needs to be interpreted with caution as the mutation rate of allozymes is slow and so this caveat might apply in this case.