Kogia sima
(Owen, 1866) · speciesAt a glance
Sources12 archives
Databases and archives Kogia sima's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation18 languages↗
Animal Diversity WebUniv. of Michigan MZspecies account↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility1 721 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System1 243 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI10 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics12 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The dwarf sperm whale (Kogia sima) is a sperm whale that inhabits temperate and tropical oceans worldwide, in particular continental shelves and slopes. It was first described by biologist Richard Owen in 1866, based on illustrations by naturalist Sir Walter Elliot. The species was considered to be synonymous with the pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps) from 1878 until 1998. The dwarf sperm whale is a small whale, 2 to and 136 to, that has a gray coloration, square head, small jaw, and robust body. Its appearance is very similar to the pygmy sperm whale, distinguished mainly by the position of the dorsal fin on the body–nearer the middle in the dwarf sperm whale and nearer the tail in the other. The dwarf sperm whale is a suction feeder that mainly eats squid, and does this in small pods of typically one to four members. It is preyed upon by the killer whale (Orcinus orca) and large sharks such as the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharius). When startled, the whale can eject a cloud of red-brown fluid. Most of what is known of the whale comes from beached individuals, as sightings in the ocean are rare. Many of these stranded whales died from parasitic infestations or heart failure. The dwarf sperm whale is hunted in small numbers around Asia. It is most threatened by ingesting, or getting entangled by, marine debris. No global population estimate has been made, and so its conservation status by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is least concern.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology4
Life cycle & reproduction4
Diet & foraging3
Habitat & environment4
Uses & economy1
Other traits6
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Kogia sima has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Kogia sima carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Kogia sima. Above itBeside it, each dot is one dated fossil find — few enough to count, so they are drawn individually rather than as a graph. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil. Where the DNA reaches further back than the oldest fossil, the gap is hatched: the ghost lineage. It means the lineage was already out there, but has left us nothing we have dug up yet.
How it livedPBDB
Record type2 969 records
Origin
Range
Depth
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions12 of 26 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Washington, US | 108 |
| Museums Victorialocation not on record | 29 |
| Sydney, AU | 18 |
| DOI/NPS, Salem Maritime National Historic Sitelocation not on record | 16 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 16 |
| Los Angeles, US | 9 |
| Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Surlocation not on record | 5 |
| Mexico City, MX | 2 |
| Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territorylocation not on record | 2 |
| North Carolina Museum of Natural Scienceslocation not on record | 2 |
| Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collectionlocation not on record | 2 |
| Centro Regional de Investigación Acuícola y Pesquera, Bahía de Banderas, Instituto Nacional de Pescalocation not on record | 2 |
| Edmonton, CA | 2 |
| Cambridge, US | 2 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 1 |
| Victoria, CA | 1 |
| Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras José Benito Vives de Andréis (INVEMAR)location not on record | 1 |
| San Diego, US | 1 |
| CASlocation not on record | 1 |
| LUZlocation not on record | 1 |
| Honolulu, US | 1 |
| Saint John, CA | 1 |
| Bonn, DE | 1 |
| Auckland, NZ | 1 |
| National Museum of Natural Sciencelocation not on record | 1 |
| University museum (Fujukan)location not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Kogia sima was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.