Folk Zoology Conference 2026

 

I did a presentation!! This presentation is part of the 2026 Folk Zoology Conference, organized by Floe Foxon. The scope of the conference is the intersection between folklore and zoology, which is exactly where I would place many of the paper whales I describe on this blog. The presentation is a general overview of the project and a discussion of some of my favourite cases, including a lot of material and art which (as of posting this) I have yet to make blog posts for, so I guess this is sort of a preview.

This new material will all eventually have dedicated posts where I go into more detail - especially Chamisso's Aleutian Whales and the Antarctic Long-Finned Whale, which I was very eager to talk about.

My presentation starts at 3:53. 

 

Phocaena obtusata

 

 

At the end of the winter of 1888, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Federico Godoy of Concepción, I received the skin of a tunina caught in the bay of Talcahuano, which clearly constitutes a new species, which I name Phocaena obtusata.

Dimensions:
•    Total length, measured at the curve of the back – 149cm
•    Distance between the tip of the snout and the dorsal fin – 69cm
•    Length of the root of the dorsal fin – 20cm
•    Perpendicular height of this fin – 9cm
•    Distance between the dorsal and caudal fins – 60cm
•    Length of the caudal fin at its midpoint – 11cm
•    Width of the caudal fin – 35cm
•    Distance between the tip of the snout and the pectoral fin – 31cm
•    Length of the root of this fin – 8cm
•    Oblique height of the root – 19cm
•    Length of the mouth – 15cm
•    Distance between the tip of the snout and the eye – 18cm
•    Distance between the two pectoral fins – 20cm
•    Maximum body circumference excluding the pectoral fins – 85cm

The body is well Fusiform; the dorsal and ventral lines are almost of the same curvature, the ventral being slightly more convex. The forehead is very sloping and only slightly convex. The eye is located in line with the mouth, and at one-third of the height of the head. The anterior part of the head, viewed from above, shows the shape of an equilateral triangle with a rounded point. The caudal part of the body is keeled as usual, and the dorsal line shows a marked angle at the beginning of this keel. The dorsal fin has a very blunt and rounded tip, and its posterior margin is only slightly forked. The pectoral fins are even more blunt, and almost the same width along their entire length; they are situated very low, as is proven, besides the drawing, by the short distance between them. The coloration is quite distinctive: the lower half of the body is a beautiful silvery white, the upper half a very dark black, and from the white portion extend five short bands of the same color upwards. The fins are black. I cannot guarantee the width, etc., of these bands; the skin I received had lost its epidermis in several places, so it was necessary to paint the embalmed animal. But disregarding the color, the shape of the head and fins alone would be sufficient to distinguish this species.

- Philippi, Anales Museo Nacional de Chile, Premira Seccion Zoolojia, 1893, pp. 12-13

 

Phantom species don’t often jump out at me when I’m looking through books or illustrations – often their peculiarities aren’t terribly obvious until you get into the details. For example, Bory’s Dolphin looks fairly unremarkable unless you really scrutinize details like the white moustache. However, this one jumped out at me right away, for obvious reasons.

 

My sources come in many languages, but this is the first Spanish source I’ve had. The description comes from Rodolfo Amando Philippi (born Rudolph Amandus Philippi in 1808), a German-Chilean zoologist. He describes a very unique porpoise with a “lobed” pattern which is not immediately identifiable.

An interesting element of this report is that the animal was brought to Philippi in the form of a skin, and I’m not exactly sure what he means by that (what would a dolphin skin even look like?). However, he does mention that the skin was damaged to the point of needing to be touched up with paint, which is interesting. I previously made a blog post cataloguing rare examples of cetacean taxidermy, highlighting how they are difficult to preserve.

 

An example of a preserved dolphin whose colouration has been touched up with paint. Would you feel confident describing this species based on this? Photo: @wingcoaster

 

I’m curious if the porpoise illustrated was based on Philippi’s observations pre-touch up or post-touch up, but I’m inclined to say this was made post-touch up or perhaps during. There’s a good chance someone deliberately painted this dolphin like this before the new species claim was made, like a shady taxidermist dying a bird’s feathers so they can sell a rarer bird. Only in this case, the aim may not have been to deliberately dupe a collector, but a genuine attempt at preservation.

I recently recorded a presentation where I came up with several key reasons why there are so many examples of phantom whale species, and one of my hypothesized contributing factors was capture and preservation issues, and I used Phocaena obtusata as an example of this. Because preserved specimens do not age gracefully, putting observations to paper based on them is risky. Daniel Eschricht (1798-1863), who I was also researching, seemed very fond of wet specimens, which I suspect preserve the anatomy better. But, as with many marine species, whale colouration is fickle and not easily preserved, making live or recently dead individuals the best references.

This description also introduced me to the word tunina, also spelt tonina and toninha and seemingly used in both Spanish and Portuguese. This appears to be a regional name for porpoise-like cetaceans. It is similar to the Dutch word tonyn, used for the Harbour Porpoise, but I’m unsure if/how it is related.

 

Phocaena albiventris - now regarded as Cephalorhynchus eutropia, the Chilean Dolphin - illustrated by Philippi

 

This species is one of a few “paper whales” that has a paper dedicated to it, specifically “Goodall, R. N. P., A. P. Sobral, M. Labal de Vinuesa, and I. S. Cameron. 1988b. On Phocoena obtusata, with a comparison of certain diagnostic characters in South American phocoenids and the genus Cephalorhynchus. Rep. Int. Whal. Comm. (special issue) 9:259–276.” In this paper the team comes to the conclusion that the porpoise described by Philippi is actually Cephalorhynchus eutropia, the Chilean Dolphin. However, I cannot find this damn paper. This is the first one that’s truly evaded me, I’ve found every source I’ve needed to up until this point and I guess I’ve just been incredibly lucky. At some point I may get desperate and try reaching out to random scientists but if anybody can find me a copy of this paper, I’d be very appreciative.

This is a whale I’ve wanted to draw for quite a while but was procrastinating on it despite that. I took a bit of artistic liberty in interpreting the lighter band around the colour division in the original illustration as a band of grey, which I thought gives the porpoise a very 1970s vibe. The Chilean Dolphin does have a white belly, but the white does not come up the side of the dolphin in lobes.

It’s hard to pick a favourite, but this might be my favourite “paper whale” in terms of appearance.

 

Image source - WWF

 

Addendum: 1988 Re-examination

Added Nov 3, 2026

Thank you Tyler Greenfield for helping me locate the 1988 re-examination of Phocaena obtusata – it’s a lot more interesting than I thought it would be, and includes photos! The paper is authored by R.N.P. Goodall, A.P. Sobral, M. Labal de Vinuesa and I.S. Cameron.

Goodall et al’s paper opens with a translation of the original description as well as past theories; among them are many suggestions that the strange porpoise was actually a Spectacled Porpoise, Phocoena dioptrica (in this paper it is named Australophocaena dioptrica, after Barnes, 1985).

 

 

To quote the paper, “In October 1978, Goodall and Cameron visited MNHN-S, Chile. The specimen of Phocaena obtusata was not on public display, although a similar, slightly longer stuffed skin was. Only after three days of searching was an unnumbered specimen, later designated as MNHN-S 604, found hidden in the back of a cabinet and identified by comparing the measurements of three skins in the museum (labelled Cephalorhynchus eutropia by the museum staff) with those given by Philippi (Table 1).”

The preserved tunina was in a peculiar state:

 

The Phocaena obtusata specimen

 

“All three skins (Fig. 2), as well as another of Phocoena spinipinnis, were dried, badly mounted and sewn, but the measurements of MNHN-S 604 coincided enough with those of Philippi to convince us that we had found his specimen. Most of the body of MNHN-S 604 is covered with a thick (1cm or more) coating of burlap and plaster. From this sheath - which completely surrounds the body and covers the skin - the snout, dorsal fin, flippers and flukes protrude. None of the skin on the underside of the body nor the genital or anal apertures is visible due to the circular encasement. The snout is deformed, the mouth lumpily sewn together with a double thickness of twine. The tips of the flippers are missing and the flukes are badly dried and twisted. Only the dorsal fin retains some of its original shape, although also dried; it is not pointed as in Philippi's drawing (Figs 1, 2 and 6).

Evidently the plaster layer covering the body was originally painted black and white below, as described by Philippi, but, according to museum attendants, over the years varnish was applied at intervals to all mounted skins so that now the general color is a dark golden brown, without even the white of the lower body being visible. The visible skin of the head is black, without a suggestion of the white on the side of the face which is typical of A. dioptrica. Below the chin there is, just barely visible in front of the plaster, a slightly lighter area which might be a chin spot such as in C. eutropia or C. commersonii. The only osteological materials left in the skin as shown by the x-rays are the last 14 caudal vertebrae (Fig. 4) and the remains of the broken flippers (Figs 3 and 7). A wooden stick runs longitudinally within the plaster, skin and straw filling, and there is a metal rod in the caudal region. Putrefaction, as well as the layers of covering and the angle at which they had to be taken, prevented clear x-rays of the flippers. The flippers themselves could not be removed because they were wired together within the plaster sheath. The external shape of MNHN-S 604 is very similar to the two specimens of Cephalorhynchus eutropia in the Santiago Museum (shown to scale in Fig. 2).”

And so, Phocaena obtusata gains a new name: specimen MNHN-S 609.

The team used other preserved cetaceans in the museum as their basis for comparison. P. obtusata was compared against the Commerson’s Dolphin, Chilean Dolphin, Spectacled Porpoise and Burmeister’s Porpoise. Commerson’s Dolphin and the Spectacled Porpoise were compared despite their known ranges being quite far from Talcahuano. The paper then goes on to compare the dorsal fin shape, pectoral flipper bones, flipper length, tail shape and gape length.

 

 

In the Discussion section, the authors admit they originally came to Santiago with the expectation of confirming that the specimen was a Spectacled Porpoise, the most obvious conclusion based on the illustration. However, after their actual analysis of the specimen, they ended up changing their minds.

“We have no way of knowing if Philippi (1808-1904), one of the great natural historians of South America of the last century, who was aging and nearly blind in 1893, actually saw the specimen of Phocaena obtusata without the plaster or if the entire description came from an assistant. To what extent was the pigmentation pattern changed from the original during the painting of the skin (the plaster sheathing)? […]  The strange white marks on the side might, as Alien (1925) suggested, have been caused by folding of the skin. However, on folding a specimen, a dissimilar pattern would have been produced on the opposite side; the other side has never been mentioned in the literature.”

One caveat that I find interesting is the authors’ assertion on pages 273-274 that some species of cetaceans darken and discolour when the animal dies and leaves the water, which I have seen plenty of photo evidence of. However, “in A. dioptrica [the Spectacled Porpoise], the white pigment remains startlingly white after a month or more on the beach.” They use this an evidence against P. obtusata being a Spectacled Porpoise.

The team conclude, based on their investigation,  that the specimen is most likely Cephalorhynchus eutropia – “Although the striking similarity in color between P. obtusata and A. dioptrica seems to have been the major feature in suggesting that they were conspecific, in view of the treatment of the specimen (loss of epidermis, burlap and plaster reinforcing, repainting) one must cast doubt on the accuracy of the original figure and description, and color pattern must be disregarded as a useful taxonomic character for this specimen.”

Left side view, cropped from Fig. 2

 

Cetacean Taxidermy

This list is ongoing. I welcome corrections, additions, and additional info. I'm interested mostly in full-body or almost-full-body taxidermy, not wet specimens or isolated preserved body parts.

 

I love natural history museums of all calibers, and I’ve visited quite a few, but among the menageries of dead animals that I’ve witnessed, one group of animals is always missing – cetaceans. If they are present, it’s usually in the form of skeletons or scale models, which are wonderful in their own right, but I always wondered why whales and dolphins in particular never seemed to be the subject of taxidermy.

Above are some archive photos from the Field Museum of Natural History documenting the creation of a model narwhal. While I’m sure methods vary, I imagine most museum models share a similar conception and birth. These models contain 0% actual cetacean. In this case, a lifelike narwhal was sculpted out of clay, cast in plaster, and then a lighter “final” model was made from the cast using celluloid, a plastic.

While doing reading for my Alula Whale article, I discovered whale taxidermy DOES exist. However, there’s a reason examples are so rare.

I found one explanation for this in Seals and Whales of the British Museum (p. 66), where John Edward Gray notes

“It is almost impossible to preserve their skin, it being very thin and apt to crack and curl up; and when preserved, they are difficult to keep without deterioration, on account of the fat and salt they contain, and the odour they emit, especially in damp weather. For this reason, in the Paris and some other museums, they have prepared a series of plaster models to illustrate the genera.”

While incredibly difficult, it is not impossible. However, the difficulty means the results of past attempts are usually not very pretty. This post will be an attempted catalogue of all the examples of cetacean taxidermy I can find, in no particular order.

 

Malm Whale, Gothenburg Museum of Natural History, Sweden

 

Image source. Far and away the best known example of cetacean taxidermy is the Malm Whale, a preserved young Blue Whale. The mount was created in 1865, the skin pulled over a wooden frame and the jaw articulated in such a way that it can be opened and people can climb inside. While overall a success, the blue whale is no longer blue, its skin having discoloured to a dark patchy brown at some point during the preservation process.

A great deal has been written about this whale, to the point where it eclipses most other cases of cetacean taxidermy, so I won’t dwell on it here. The oft-repeated claim that it is the only taxidermied baleen whale in the world is false (see Marlene of the Fribourg Natural History Museum, mentioned further down).

 

Harbour Porpoise, Cambridge Museum of Zoology, England

 

Shared by my Twitter friend PetrichorCrown. As you can see, it clearly suffers a discolouration problem similar to the Malm Whale, although its overall form looks a bit more true-to-life. Other issues I see in taxidermy whales and dolphins is visible skin puckering and visible stiches.

 

Bottlenose Dolphin, La Salle Museum, Costa Rica

 

Shared by Twitter friend @wingcoaster. Here it looks like the taxidermist painted the dolphin in an attempt to get around the discolouration issue. I know this is standard practice in fish taxidermy, but the effect on the skin of a dolphin is somewhat uncanny.

 

Stenella longirostris roseiventris, National Museum of Natural History, France

 

This image comes from the 1999 paper Spinner Dolphins of the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia: Pelagic and Shallow-water Forms by William F. Perrin et al. I came across it while researching the Alula Whale post and it was my first time seeing a confirmed example of cetacean taxidermy.

 

Sei Whale, Fribourg Natural History Museum, Switzerland

 

This young Sei Whale, dubbed Marlene, died in 1852 and became a permanent fixture of the Natural History Museum in 1881. Photo comes from this article by Atlas Obscura.

Indus River Dolphin, Pakistan

 

This image comes from a 2020 article about how Muhammad Irfan, a 64 year old retiree and supposedly Pakistan’s only taxidermist, was tasked with preserving an Indus River Dolphin.

 

Baiji, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

 

These images come from 2011. This is one of those “I think it’s taxidermy” cases because the description is not super clear. If this is a mounted cetacean, its skin has been so thickly covered with paint and primer that it may as well be a synthetic model. The only traits that make me think this might be a real dolphin is the overall quality, the wonky form and the fact that it’s under glass.

The museum also houses a wet specimen. I wasn't counting wet specimens as taxidermy here, but here's an example of what that looks like.

 

The above image appears to be a different specimen at the same museum. The discoloration is evident and possible stitching can be seen under the tail. This photo comes from 2017

 

Finless Porpoise and Baiji, National Zoological Museum of China

 

Image 1 and image 2. These, I’m almost certain are taxidermy, just based on their qualities. To quote the original description, “The photo was taken by Linda Wong, Deputy Secretary-General of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), on March 31, 2024”.

 

Baiji, Shanghai Natural History Museum, China

 

Image comes from Flickr user Hamish Robertson, shared Nov 2009.

 

Ganges River Dolphin, La Specola, Italy

 

Shared on Flickr in 2007 by Curious Expeditions.

 

 

 

Potential Taxidermy or Provenience Unknown

The descriptions of these images were lacking in detail.

 

Bottlenose Dolphin, United States, 1914

 

This image comes from the 1914 book Nature Neighbors, with contributions from multiple photographers. The source of the dolphin is not given. The strange bulbous shape and brownish colour makes me think this is taxidermy.

 

10 meter long whale, 2012, Rikuzentakata City Maritime Museum / National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, Japan

 

Image and full description. This photo is giving SCP Foundation but I’m including it here in the interest of documenting it. This whale was part of a large scale museum specimen rescue effort in Miyagi Prefecture following the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011.

 

Bottlenose Dolphin, Netherlands

 

Image source. Potentially an image of a recently stuffed (or soon to be stuffed) dolphin who has not yet suffered discolouration. The description, translated from Dutch, goes as follows: “April Fools' Jokes : Around April 1, 1914, the magazine Het Leven published a false article about a sleeping sickness epidemic in the Netherlands. Here is a so-called shark on which eggs of the mosquito that supposedly transmits this disease were found. In reality, this is a stuffed dolphin. The Netherlands, 1914.”

 

River Dolphin? Museu de Pesca, Brazil

 

These images come from Flickr user Wanderlei Talib, taken in 2010. My only reason for thinking they might be taxidermy is the fact that they’re wonky, but they could just as well be wonky models.

A reader shared this virtual 360 tour of the Museu de Pesca with me, and I'd recommend checking it out (I easily killed 30 minutes in there). I haven't found this dolphin yet, but I did find some cabinets that were mysteriously blurred out. Paywalled cabinets, maybe - you actually need to visit the museum to see their contents.

 

Rorqual, 2009

 

Image comes from Flickr user mazgai, February 16, 2009. Provenience totally unknown, but this user shared other images from a taxidermy collection taken the same day.