Nematode communities were investigated in January and June 2008 at the western Thachin River mouth, Samut Sakhon, Thailand. The sampling site is comprised of two different habitats, i.e. mangrove forest characterized by Avicennia marina and mudflat adjacent to the mangrove forest. Mean densities of the nematode ranged from 110 -995 ind.10 cm -2 while taxonomic classification showed 32 and 50 genera in the mudflat and mangrove forest, respectively. The high diversity indices of nematode assemblages were recorded in both habitats with values ranged between 0.49 -2.32 in mudflat and 2.02 -2.92 in mangrove. The predominant genera were Terschellingia sp. Daptonema sp. Sabatieria sp. and Hopperia sp. Two distinct groups of nematode communities between the two habitats were detected by multidimensional scaling, analyses of similarity percentages. The number of species and density were significantly different in the two different habitats (p < 0.05). The mangrove forest provided wide variety of microhabitat and physically stable environment while the mudflat area was exposed to water turbulence and prone to anthropogenic activities. The environmental differences of the two communities may have resulted in higher diversity and density of nematodes in the mangrove forest.
On 5 September 2022, a dead baleen whale was found stranded at Laem Phak Bia, Phetchaburi, the Gulf of Thailand, Thailand but could not be identified because it was in an advanced stage of decomposition. It was first suspected to be Omura’s whale (Balaenoptera Omurai), as that is a common species in the Gulf of Thailand. However, the cranium morphology was different from B. omurai and more similar to the common minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) from the North Pacific Ocean, which has never been reported in Thai territorial waters. The mitochondrial DNA control region (D-loop) was then used to identify the species through the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) available at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) GenBank, which resulted in a high percent identity, 96.49 to 98.84, with B. acutorostrata. A Bayesian phylogenetic tree was further used to confirm the species, which grouped with B. acutorostrata from the North Pacific Ocean. This study provides evidence of the first stranding event of B. acutorostrata in the Gulf of Thailand. It is new information that extends previous knowledge on the distribution of the common minke whale and raises the need for more active surveys of cetaceans in the South China Sea going forward.
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