[3] The common and scientific name was given in honor of Edgar Leopold Layard, the curator of the South African Museum, who prepared drawings of a skull and sent them to the British taxonomist John Edward Gray, who described the species in 1865.

When observed closely, either at sea or when stranded, these whales show a pale neckband that separates the darker grey colouration found upon the head and melon from the rest of the body.

[6] Based on sporadic sightings and a number of stranded animals, it appears that the strap-toothed beaked whale ranges widely across the Southern Ocean, with a possible circumpolar distribution in sub-Antarctic and temperate waters.

Records for the species have been made in Tierra del Fuego and Chubut in Argentina, the Falkland Islands, Western and Southern Australia and New Zealand.

Larger and heavily armed species that can inflict wounds generally travel in groups where only one or two males are present, reducing the risk of aggressive interactions.

One was recorded chasing, attacking and killing a solitary adult strap-toothed whale about 50 km offshore of Bremer Bay in south-western Australia.

In an extensive dietary analysis of 14 stranded whales from New Zealand and South Africa, 94.8% of the stomach contents were composed of cephalopods, with evidence of some fish and crustaceans.

[7] A difference in the shape of consumed prey was noted between male and female whales, but it was determined that both sexes targeted squid of a similar size.

Intense noise, particularly that from sonar, has been shown to cause panic, rapid ascent and subsequent death due to decompression sickness in a number of beaked whale species.