Southern Bottlenose Whales feed mostly on oceanic squids, most likely in deep water (Sekiguchi et al. 1993, McLeod et al. 2003). They are most common beyond the continental shelf and over submarine canyons. Based on shipboard visual surveys around the Shetland Islands, Santora and Brown (2010) found that Southern Bottlenose Whales were sighted only in Antarctic Circumpolar Current waters. Most sightings occurred in 1,000-4,500 m water depths with peaks in sighting rates at 1,500-1,999 m and 3,500-3,999 m. Clusters of sightings occurred in two areas known to be krill hot spots. Cockcroft et al. (1990) reported sightings in the steep thermocline between the Agulhas current and cold Antarctic water masses..

Southern Bottlenose Whales have a circumpolar distribution in the Southern Hemisphere, south of about 30°S (Mead 1989, Moors-Murphy 2018). Strandings have been recorded from Antarctica, New Zealand, Australia including Tasmania and Heard Island, South Africa, Chile, the Falkland Islands, Tierra del Fuego, and Brazil (Mead 1989, Santos 2016). Kasamatsu and Joyce (1995) reported high encounter rates of beaked whales, likely mostly Southern Bottlenose Whales, at 58°S to 62°S in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Encounter rates were lower in the western and central South Pacific. At least in summer, they occur mostly in Antarctic waters south of the Antarctic Convergence; the southernmost sighting reported by Kasamatsu and Joyce (1995) was at 73°S in the Ross Sea. Wintering areas are not known although there is some evidence of winter movement to southern Africa from higher latitudes (Sekiguchi et al. 1993). Records from northwestern Australia and Brazil suggest they may at times occur in warm temperate waters (Mead 1989, Santos 2016) or these records may just be extralimital records. In addition, the species was described by William Flower in 1882 from a beach-worn skull found on Lewis Isle in the Dampier Archipelago of north-western Australia (Flower 1882). At 20.5^oS, this remains the most northerly record for this species. As, there are no subsequent records from these tropical waters (Groom et al. 2014) the Lewis Isle specimen is considered to be extralimital.

The Southern Bottlenose Whale is listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

There is very little information about this species, its biology, abundance, bycatch rates or migratory patterns (Dixon et al. 1994). More research is clearly needed.