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The Northern Bottlenose Whale is only found in the northern North Atlantic, entering the North Sea regularly and sometimes straying as far south as the Azores or the Mediterranean.

Classification: The genus Hyperoodon derives from the Greek hyperoe ('above') and odontos ('a tooth'), referring to a skull with no exposed teeth in the lower jaw. The specific name, ampullatus, means 'flask' and refers to the bottle-shaped head.

Local Names: North Atlantic Bottlenose Whale; Flathead; Bottlehead; Steephead; Bottlenosen or Andehval (Norway); Butskopf (German or Dutch); Anarnaq (Greenland); Andhvaler (Iceland).

Description: The head is the predominant feature of this species; in females and young, it is rounded but not particularly defined from the beak. In males, however, the front surface is flat and it overhangs the beak, becoming more and more bluff with the onset of old age. The bottle-like beak is moderately long, whilst the dorsal fin has a prominant, pointed peak. There are two teeth on the lower jaw, and sometimes another pair can be found just behind these. The body colour is brown to grey, with the dorsal fin being darker and the melon and face lighter. The skin can appear to have a mottled appearance, and in old males, the facial regions can turn white. Males reach a maximum size of 9.8m, with females measuring about 8.7m in length.

Recognition at sea: The Northern Bottlenose Whale is the only beaked whale with a bulging melon in the North Atlantic, and therefore should be easy to identify with its huge size. If only the back and dorsal fin, however, are seen, then it is possible to confuse females and young males with smaller beaked whales and maybe even the Minke Whale.

Habitat: Northern Bottlenose Whales do not really become common until the water reaches a depth of 1,000m. They tend to prefer waters in the temperature range of -2ºC to +17ºC, and occasionally travel a few kilometres into pack ice fields.

Food & Feeding:Squid are a speciality prey to this large cetacean, with sea cucumbers, prawns, herrings, starfish and deepsea fish. Akin to Sperm Whales, they also have a habit of ingesting odd items, such as floating debris. 

Behaviour: Northern Bottlenose Whales travel in units of between four and ten individuals, but more than one unit may be in sight at any one time. In some areas, such as the sea around Iceland, there is some segregation on the basis of sex and age; groups of mothers and calves travel together, whereas old males and youngsters may travel alone. This species' gregarious habits - such as approaching boats or staying near wounded pod members - made them easy to kill.

Longevity: Approximately 30-40 years.

Estimated Current Population: Unknown, but listed as vulnerable since 1976.

The Influence of Man: The Northern Bottlenose Whale was the victim of occasional hunting between 1850-70. By the 1880s, Norway had a seperate fleet for the slaughter of Bottlenose Whales alone, and in 1896 more than 3,330 whales were taken. However, by 1927 the Norwegian fleet had decreased to one ship, and there was little hunting of these whales until the 1940s, when Norway began its open-sea fishery of Minke Whales for human food. Killer Whales, Long-Finned Pilot Whales and Bottlenose Whales were taken for animal feed, and nearly 6,000 of the latter were taken between 1927-1973, mostly from the southern tip of Greenland. Norway stopped its Bottlenose Whale fishery in 1973, mainly for economic reasons, and the species was finally protected in 1977.