The dwarf sperm whale is a suction feeder that mainly eats squid, and does this in small pods of typically one to four members.

The first two dwarf sperm whale specimens, a male and a female, were collected in 1853 by naturalist Sir Walter Elliot, who thought it a kind of porpoise due to the short snout.

However, when he sent drawings of these whales – including skeletal diagrams – to biologist Richard Owen to describe, Owen, in his 1866 paper, recognized it as a type of sperm whale in the family Physeteridae based on several similar characteristics, such as having functional teeth in only the lower jaw, a lopsided blowhole leaning towards the left side, and a spermaceti organ.

[7][8] In 1900, zoologist Frank Evers Beddard speculated that the word "might be a tribute to a Turk of the past surnamed Cogia Effendi, who observed whales in the Mediterranean".

[9] In 1871, mammalogist Theodore Gill split Physeteridae into two subfamilies: Physterinae with Physeter, and Kogiinae with Kogia and the now-defunct Euphysetes;[10] this has now been elevated to family, Kogiidae.

[7] The dwarf sperm whale has a dark-grey or blue-grey coloration with a lighter-grey underside, and a pale, crescent-shaped mark between the eye and the flipper, sometimes called a "fake gill", which is characteristic of the genus.

[16][17][19] Kogia is identified as having a square head, a small jaw with the snout jutting outward, and a porpoise-like build with a robust body that rapidly decreases towards the tail.

[17] Unique to Kogia, there is a sac which hangs off from the small intestines near the anus that is filled with a dense, red-brown fluid that looks similar to chocolate syrup.

[17][19] The dwarf sperm whale ranges throughout tropical and temperate oceans of the world and inhabits the continental shelf and slope area.

In the Indian Ocean, the whale is reported from Oman, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia around Timor, western Australia and South Africa.

The stomach contents of stranded dwarf sperm whales comprise mainly squid and, to a lesser degree, deep sea fish (from the mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones) and crustaceans.

Also, the blunt snout, lack of teeth, and reduced jaw are characteristics seen in other suction feeding toothed whales.

It occupies the same ecological niche in the same regions as the pygmy sperm whale, though the latter can forage in deeper waters and has been known to feed on a wider array of species of larger size.

[7][25] Although Dwarf sperm whales swim in the deep waters far from the shore, they still possess some important escaping mechanisms.

Even though Dwarf sperm whales were believed to be in the deep ocean, they have recently been surfacing at the top, putting them in danger by humans.

“They are also being put at health risk due to human pollution, ingestion of marine debris, and potential ship strikes” (Reed et al., 2015).

[17] The dwarf sperm whale congregates into small pods of one to four individuals, though on occasion up to ten, likely due to limited food resources.

[7] Kogia, unlike other whales, can eject a red-brown fluid when startled, likely to distract predators, similar to squid.

[27] There is some hunting of the dwarf sperm whale in Indonesia, Japan, Sri Lanka, and the Lesser Antilles as food or bait, though there are no major operations.

A survey of trace element distribution in tissues of the dwarf sperm whale ( Kogia sima ) stranded along the South Carolina coast from 1990–2011.

A survey of trace element distribution in tissues of the dwarf sperm whale (Kogia sima) stranded along the South Carolina coast from 1990–2011