[5] Surviving to become the most abundant baleen whale in the world, it is now one of the mainstays of the industry alongside its cosmopolitan counterpart the common minke.

In February 1867, a fisherman found an estimated 9.75 m (32.0 ft) male rorqual floating in the Río de la Plata near Belgrano, about ten miles from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

After bringing it ashore he brought it to the attention of the German Argentine zoologist Hermann Burmeister, who described it as a new species, Balaenoptera bonaerensis, the same year.

[6] The skeleton of another specimen, a 4.7 m (15 ft) individual taken off Otago Head, South Island, New Zealand, in October 1873, was sent by Professor Frederick Hutton, keeper of the Otago Museum in Dunedin, to the British Museum in London, where it was examined by the British zoologist John Edward Gray, who described it as a new species of "pike whale" (minke whale, B. acutorostrata) and named it B.

Gordon R. Williamson was the first to describe a dark-flippered form in the Southern Hemisphere, based on three specimens, a pregnant female taken in 1955 and two males taken in 1957, all brought aboard the British factory ship Balaena.

[10] In the 1970s osteological and morphological studies suggested it was at least a subspecies of the common minke whale, which was designated B. a. bonaerensis, after Burmeister's specimen.

Her female fetus, in turn, was fathered by a North Atlantic common minke, demonstrating that back-crossing is possible between hybrids of the two species.

Their prominent, upright, falcate dorsal fin – often more curved and pointed than in common minkes –is set about two-thirds the way along the back.

Like common and dwarf minkes, they have two light gray to whitish swaths, called the thorax and flank patches, the former running diagonally up from the axilla and diagonally down again to form a triangular intrusion into the dark gray of the thorax and the latter rising more vertically along its anterior edge and extending further dorsally before gradually sloping posteriorly to merge with the white of the ventral side of the caudal peduncle.

Unlike the dwarf minke, the dark gray between the eye and flipper does not extend unto the ventral grooves of the throat to form a dark throat patch; there is instead an irregularly shaped line running from about the level of the eye to the anterior insertion of the flipper, merging with the light gray of the shoulder patch.

Antarctic minkes have an average of 42 to 44 thin, narrow ventral grooves (range 32 to 70) that extend to about 48% of the length of the body – well short of the umbilicus.

[24] In the Indian and Pacific Oceans, they have been recorded off Natal Province, South Africa,[24] Réunion (July),[41] Australia (July–August),[14] New Zealand, New Caledonia (June),[42] Ecuador (2°S, October),[43] Peru (12°30'S, September–October),[44] and the northern fjords of southern Chile.

[45] Vagrants have been reported in Suriname – an 8.2 metres (26.9 feet) female was killed 45 km (28 mi) upstream the Coppename River in October 1963;[46] the Gulf of Mexico, where a 7.7 metres (25.3 feet) female was found dead off the US state of Louisiana in February 2013;[47] and off Jan Mayen (June) in the northeastern North Atlantic.

[53] Some individuals have become trapped in the ice and were forced to overwinter in the Antarctic – for example, up to 120 "lesser rorquals" were trapped in a small breathing hole with sixty killer whales and an Arnoux's beaked whale in Prince Gustav Channel, east of the Antarctic Peninsula and west of James Ross Island, in August 1955.

The second was marked north of Cape Adare (68°S 172°E / 68°S 172°E / -68; 172) and recovered nearly six years later northwest of the Riiser-Larsen Peninsula (68°S 32°E / 68°S 32°E / -68; 32), a minimum of over 139 degrees of longitude.

The Report of the Scientific Committee acknowledged that this estimate is subject to some degree of negative bias because some minke whales would have been outside the surveyable ice edge boundaries.

After a gestation period of about 10 months, a single calf of 2.73 m (9.0 ft) is born – twin and triplet fetuses have been reported, but are rare.

In the Southern Ocean, over 90% of individuals fed on Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba); E. crystallorophias also formed an important part of the diet in some areas, particularly in the relatively shallow waters of Prydz Bay.

Rare and incidental items include calanoid copepods, the pelagic amphipod Themisto gaudichaudii, Antarctic sidestripes (Pleuragramma antarcticum), the crocodile icefish Cryodraco antarcticus, nototheniids, and myctophids.

Individuals were often found with orange-brown to yellowish patches of the diatom Cocconeis ceticola on their bodies – 35.7% off South Africa and 67.5% in the Antarctic.

[27] During bouts of feeding they will lunge multiple times onto their side (either left or right) into a dense patch of prey with mouth agape and ventral pleats expanded as their gular pouch fills with prey-laden water.

Their source remained a mystery for decades until attributed to the Antarctic minke whale in a paper published in 2014 – though it had been suggested to originate from this species as early as the mid-2000s.

The chemist Christopher Ash, who had served on the British factory ship Balaena during this time, stated that they were small enough to be lifted by their tails using a 10-ton spring balance and weighed entire.

Like Bull before him, Ash commented on their meat, which he described as "fine-textured in comparison with the other whales, and if properly cooked almost indistinguishable from beef.

[87] Not wanting to repeat the same mistakes it had made with previous species, the International Whaling Commission set a quota of 5,000 for the following season, 1972–73.

[87][91][92] From 1987 to the present, Japan has been sending a fleet consisting of a single factory ship and several catcher/spotting vessels to the Southern Ocean to catch Antarctic minkes under Article VIII of the IWC, which allows the culling of whales for scientific research.

[31][94][95] An 8.2 m (27 ft) male Antarctic minke whale (confirmed by genetics) was caught west of Jan Mayen (70°57′N 8°51′W / 70.950°N 8.850°W / 70.950; -8.850) in the northeastern North Atlantic on 30 June 1996.

[3] The Antarctic minke whale is listed on Appendix II[97] of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS).

It is listed on Appendix II[97] as it has an unfavourable conservation status or would benefit significantly from international co-operation organised by tailored agreements.

In addition, the Antarctic minke whale is covered by the Memorandum of Understanding for the Conservation of Cetaceans and Their Habitats in the Pacific Islands Region.