In 1870 he reported seeing a new species of whale off the coast of Chile long with two dorsal fins observed by Giglioli from Magenta, a warship of the Italian Royal Navy. The Rorqual is the only similarly configured whale in the fossil record. A similar whale was seen a year later off the coast of Scotland. The two dorsal fins were said to be over six feet high, with a large pair of flippers. It was provisionally named Anphiptera Pacifica, and is an unrecognized species of, not having been confirmed by enough sightings to be recognized as a species. Magenta was. The voyage of the "Magenta" was sponsored by the Government of Italy in the 19th century. He also reported a stranding of a Cuvier's beaked whale in the Mediterranean Sea. He also reported Killer Whales and Fin whales in the Mediterranean.
Other work
Giglioli conducted a detailed study of the chimpanzee skulls which his friend Georg August Schweinfurth collected in the region of today's southern Sudan. He named the species Troglodytes schweinfurthii. After his death, Giglioli's collection, together with his extensive archaeological and ethnological library, went to the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography where they are now conserved. The photographic archive includes work by John K. Hillers, Timothy H. O'Sullivan and Charles Milton Bell photos as well as his own.
Works
Partial list
I Tasmaniani. Cenni storici ed etnologici di un popolo estinto. Illustrated with 15 Original Albumen Photographs. Milano: F. Treves.
Elenco dei Mammiferi, degli Uccelli e dei Rettili ittiofagi appartenenti alla Fauna italiana, e Catalogo degli Anfibie dei Pesci italiani in Catalogo Sezione italiana. Esposizione intern. di Pesca, Berlino, 1880 : 63–117.. 1880.
Primo resoconto dei risultati della inchiesta ornitologica in Italia Comp. dal dottore Enrico Hillyer Giglioli Firenze. Coi tipi dei successori Le Monnier 1889–1891. and
with Odoardo Beccari and Francis Henry Hill Guillemard, Wanderings in the great forests of Borneo; travels and researches of a naturalist in Sarawak London: A. Constable & Co., Ltd.
Giglioli, E.H. 1882. New and very rare fish from the Mediterranean. Nature25: 535.
Giglioli, E.H. 1882. New Deep-sea Fish from the Mediterranean. Nature, London 27 : 198–199.
Intorno a due nuovi pesci dal golfo di Napoli. Zool. Anz6. 397–400.
With A. Issel Esplorazione talassografica del Mediterraneo esguita sotto gli auspici del Governo italia no: 199–291, 5 fig. n.n., I map. 1884.
Note intorno agli animali vertebrati raccolti dal Conte Augusto Boutourline e dal D. Leopoldo Traversi ad Assab e nello Scioa negli anni 1884-87.Annali Mus. civ. Stor. nat. Genova6: 5-73. 1888.
On a supposed new genus and species of pelagic gadoid fishes from the Mediterranean. Proc. Zool. Soc. London : 328–332. 1889.
Apunti intorno ad una Collezione Etnografica fatta durante il terzo viaggio di Cook e conservata sin dalla fine del secolo scorso nel R. Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale di Firenze. Firenze. 1893–95.
