Stejneger's beaked whale is a beaked whale of deep waters in the North Pacific. It captures fish and squid by suction feeding in deep water.
Adult males grow large tusks in the lower jaw. In females and young animals, the teeth remain hidden beneath the gums.
Stejneger’s beaked whale feeds by suction on fish and squid in deep waters of the cold-temperate to subarctic North Pacific. It is difficult to identify at sea, so some Alaska stock assessments group several Mesoplodon species together.
Stejneger’s beaked whale inhabits cold-temperate to subarctic North Pacific waters, usually offshore in deep water on or beyond the continental slope. The species was named after naturalist Leonhard Stejneger, who described it from a skull found on Bering Island in 1885. At sea it is difficult to distinguish from other Mesoplodon whales, so some stock assessments outside Alaska group several species together.
Males have tusk-like teeth that emerge from the lower jaw; in females and juveniles, teeth remain hidden beneath the gums. Adults can reach about 5.7 m and 1,600 kg. They make five or six shallow dives followed by a longer dive of 10–15 minutes that may reach about 1,500 m, feeding by suction on small deep-water fish, tunicates and cephalopods such as squid.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
NOAA lists fishing-gear entanglement, commercial whaling, marine debris and underwater noise as threats. In the United States, the species is protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and is listed in CITES Appendix II. Because sightings are rare, reliable estimates of abundance and population trends are difficult.