Globicephala mêlas (Traill, 1809). Nicholson's J. Nat. Philos. Chem. Arts, 22:81.

TYPE LOCALITY: UK, Scotland, "in Scapay Bay, in Pomona, one of the Orkneys".

DISTRIBUTION: North Atlantic and southern Oceans: cold-temperate waters. Kasuya (1975) described the historic distribution in the NW Pacific.

STATUS: CITES - Appendix II.

SYNONYMS: edwardii, giobiceps, leucosagmaphora, svineval.

COMMENTS: See Van Bree (1971). Formerly called G. melaena but Article 31b of the third edition of the International of Zoological Nomenclature (1985) specifically gave mêlas as an example of a Greek adjective that does not change its ending when transferred to a genus of another gender (see Schevill, 1990«, b; Rice, 1990).