Singing Whales and Flying Squid by Ellis Richard

Author:Ellis, Richard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: THE LYONS PRESS
Published: 2006-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A recent investigation of killer whale genetics found relatively little diversity among killer whales worldwide, but the only Antarctica sample available for that study … found that there are three morphologically distinct types of killer whales in Antarctica that do not appear to mingle in schools or hybridise, although they have overlapping geographic ranges. This suggests that isolating mechanisms are already in effect and … they may each warrant separate species status. Evidence from molecular genetic analyses and additional morphological studies will be important in verifying this interpretation. Killer whales are common top predators in Antarctica; in order to understand their role in the Antarctic ecosystem it will be necessary to clarify the taxonomic relationships, further identify the ecological traits, and determine the relative abundance of the three forms described here.

While new species are being discovered, hunting is driving other species of whales and dolphins to the brink of extinction. First armed with spears, then with harpoon cannons, whalers scoured the oceans for a thousand years in search of whales to kill. Humanity’s failure to eliminate an entire species is certainly not for want of trying. The insertion of Longman’s beaked whale into the catalog of living whale species does not offset the massive depredations of the past, but it is somehow fitting that among the unexpected “antidotes” to extinction would be a large cetacean whose existence was unknown thirty years ago, two new kinds of killer whale, a new little dolphin, and (maybe) a previously unsuspected species of baleen whale. It was not the whalemen who found Indopacetus; rather, in another example of technology enlarging the knowledge base of marine science, it was a sharp-eyed researcher comparing photo collections and recalling elongated skulls from two distant beaches that added Indopacetus to our list of known cetaceans.

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