20.10.2018 – From Bottlenose to Bottlenose
November 7, 2018
23.10.2018 – Chasing rainbows
November 9, 2018
Today we had a beautiful sighting with two Blainville Beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris). This mother and her calf were quite sociable, to our delight. The whale girl became curious, approached our boat, turned sideways in the bow, looked up, then turned on her back. The photos are not the very best, but you can clearly see that it was a female animal.
Male marine mammals have a genital slit and an anus slit, and females additionally have two small teat slits. Afterwards we were able to join a group of Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), which also had calves in their midst. Such groups are called schools. Sometimes a school interacts with another school! This of course applies to different schools of dolphins.
But even human schools are sometimes visiting dolphin schools…… in Australia, there is the award-winning school project “The Dolphin Watch Project”, founded in 2006, in collaboration with WDC and the teachers Tony and Phyll Bartram. One can imagine that this practice-oriented approach is very popular with the students. They are involved in the researchers’ scientific work, participate in Photo ID studies up to six times a year, and are involved in the conservation of dolphins and marine wildlife. What a great way to make young people love the sea and marine mammals! Such projects, in different living environments should go to school. That’s learning through life!
By Fatima Kutzschbach
Sighting of the day
Ribeira Brava
14:30 Blainville’s Beaked whales, Bottlenose dolphins
Stenella
10:00 Sperm whales
