Gervais two-toothed whale
| Gervais two-toothed whale | ||||||||||||
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| Mesoplodon europaeus | ||||||||||||
| ( Gervais , 1855) |
The Gervais two-toothed whale ( Mesoplodon europaeus ), also known as the European beaked whale , is a species of whale from the genus of the two-toothed whale ( Mesoplodon ), which belongs to the family of the beaked whales (Ziphiidae).
distribution
The first specimen was discovered and named by the French biologist Paul Gervais in the English Channel in 1855 . This site, however, turned out to be atypical, as the main distribution area of the species includes the western central Atlantic . Gervais' two-toothed whales are found from New York in the north to Venezuela in the south and are particularly common in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean . There are far fewer finds in the eastern Atlantic, stranded animals have been found on the Canary Islands , the west coast of Africa and the island of Ascension .
description
Gervais' two-toothed whales are dark gray in color, with the underside being lighter. The head is very small for whales, has a suggested melon and sometimes ends in a white tip, as with all two-toothed whales, the two teeth of the lower jaw protrude from the closed mouth. With a length of up to 5.2 meters, females are larger than the males, which are a maximum of 4.5 meters long.
Way of life
These whales live in the warmer regions of the Atlantic. They live pelagic (in the open sea) in pairs or small schools, scars on the back and flanks, especially of the males, suggest rival fights. Their main diet is squid .
threat
Gervais beaked whales have never been hunted commercially, but there have been reports of them getting caught in fishing nets and drowning. Whether the dense shipping traffic in their area and the irritation caused by the sonar of submarines is a threat has not been fully clarified; mass strandings during a NATO maneuver, in which low-frequency sonar was also used, certainly indicate this. However, there is too little data to estimate the total population or the real degree of risk.
literature
- Rüdiger Wandrey: The whales and seals of the world . Franckh-Kosmos Verlags GmbH, 1997, ISBN 3-440-07047-6
Web links
- Mesoplodon europaeus in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2006. Posted by: Cetacean Specialist Group, 1996. Retrieved on 12 May, 2006.