Showing posts with label dolphin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dolphin. Show all posts

Northern Australia Has a New Dolphin

There are many species of dolphin. To most people they do look much alike. We know that they are very intelligent and like to be in the presence of Man, even if it is only following boats

A new species has been identified off northern Australia. It could have always been there or moved there from somewhere else. They are in the "hump" class, having a raised portion below the dorsal fin.

Scientists are treating the dolphin as a new species which makes three species of Indo-Pacific humpback. There are four kinds of humpback in total including the eastern Atlantic type, Sousa teuszil.
Apparently, naming of the "new" species is a complex process based on the previously used naming practice, behavior of the animal itself and its habitat.

Discovery of the northern Australian dolphin came about by the first intense study into the humpback genus. It involved examination of 180 skulls and 235 tissue samples.
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Evolution by Ty Buchanan
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Pink Dolphin Will Soon Be Lost

Pink dolphins who live off the coast of China are in serious decline. In 2003 there were 158 of them. Now that figure has fallen below 78. The numbers are estimates because they are always on the move.

Samuel Hung chairman of the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society says government action is needed to save the species. The dolphins bring tourists to Hong Kong so there is private money that could be used, though major government funding was needed to take effect immediately.

Waters near Hong Kong are polluted and young dolphins die from toxins in their mother's milk. It accumulates in seawater. Dolphins right across the world are getting diseases from pollution. Industrial fishing also kills thousands every year.

A new species of dolphin has been found off the southern coast of Australia. The Burrunan dolphin (Tursiops australia) is in small numbers due to polluted runoff into the sea. The mysterious problem of dolphin beachings continues. Noise of the modern world is blamed for this. Too many humans encroaching on the dolphins' natural domain is unstoppable. In coming decades some species will be lost forever.
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Oceanography
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Marine Animals Die With Unusual Warming off the Coast of Peru

Something is going on out there. Mysterious deaths of particular species of animals occur regularly. Recently dolphins died in their hundreds while thousands of pelicans died off the coast of Lima, Peru. This was followed by thousands of crustaceans dying.

The crustacean affected is red krill. It is known that some species of dolphin eat this food. Pelicans also surface feed for krill.  Why would a food source die after poisoning other animals?

These deaths are not being caused directly by humans with perhaps chemicals or pesticides. The reason is the ocean off the coast of Lima is warming up. Krill have been moving closer to the coast to avoid the heat. Environmentalists blame offshore oil exploration. The government says they died of natural causes, but the seemingly static La Niña with cool weather in the western Pacific (oddly currently warm in the east) is not natural.
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Nature

Whale Fossils Found in Chile's Atacama Desert

Between 7 million and 2 million years ago dozens of whales came to an untimely end all in one place. They appear to have died in small groups. The reason why is not clear. Maybe storms drove them there, they were trapped in a landslide or caught in a lagoon.

Over time, the shallow area has been pushed up by geological change. Now they are located in the driest place on Earth still within a kilometer of the surf. But this is the Atacama Desert.

Chilean scientists are asking why whales die in large groups in far flung places such as Chile, Peru and Egypt. Seventy five skeletons have been found in Chile so far, 20 of them complete examples. Old and young whales lay alongside each other in an area of 5,000 square meters.

They are mostly baleen whales. A rare, extinct walrus-like dolphin has also been found there. Most scenarios of the wales' death involve single incidents, a storm or landslide trapping them in a lagoon. However, it is more likely that a "natural" trap of some kind caused the whales to die over a long period.
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Paleontology

New Dolphin Species Found in Australia

It is amazing that a species of dolphin has been living along the coast of Australia and scientists did not know it - until now. The Burrunan dolphin is the third new species to be identified since the 1800s. Named Tursiops australis, the new mammal is represented by two small groups living among bottle-nosed and common dolphins living off the Victorian coast.

They are quite distinct from other dolphins having different body shape, skulls and DNA sequence. The discovery came as quite a shock and shows that new species of other animals could be living unidentified in regions already extensively examined.

Man may be going into space but much of our planet still remains unexplored. New species still need to be classified in South America. The behavior of some creatures is not yet fully understood. For example, giant catfish in Asia are suspected of taking people swimming across rivers.
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Biology