Stranding of a Pygmy Sperm Whale, <em>Kogia breviceps</em>, in the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada

Abstract

A Pygmy Sperm Whale, Kogia breviceps, stranded alive and later died in the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, Quebec, Canada on 28 August 2001. This is the northern-most stranding of this species in the western Atlantic. The whale was estimated to be approximately 3 m long and a longitudinal section from one tooth (31 mm long and 5.0 mm in diameter) revealed 3.5 growth layer groups.

Kogia Breviceps (Cetacea: Kogiidae)

“…]), west to Hawai'i (Baird 2005;Sylvestre 1983; Thomas et al 1990), Guam (Eldredge 1991(Eldredge , 2003, New Caledonia (Sylvestre 1988), Japan (Omura and Takahashi 1981), Taiwan (Wang et al 2002), New Zealand, and Australia (Borneo [Harrison and Jamuth 1958], New Zealand [Sylvestre 1983], and South Australia [Hale 1962]). In the Atlantic, K. breviceps is found from Argentina (Castello et al 1986) and Brazil (Carvolho 1966Geise and Borobia 1987;Secchi et al 1994), the Azores (Martins et al 1985), Europe (Great Britain [Brown 1975], and The Netherlands, France, and Spain [Caldwell and Caldwell 1989;Heintzelman 1981;Santos et al 2006;Van Canneyt et al 1998]), eastern Canada (McAlpine et al 1997;Measures et al 2004;Nelson et al 1991), the Caribbean Sea Mignucci-Giannoni 1998, 1999), the eastern United States (Massachusetts to FloridaSylvestre 1983), and Gulf of Mexico (Texas- Gunther et al 1955;Huckstadt and Antezana 2001;Hysmith et al 1976;Raun et al 1970). In the Indian Ocean, K. breviceps occurs along South Africa (Plö n 2004; Ross 1979Ross , 1984, off eastern Africa (Ballance and Pitman 1998), Oman, and Sri Lanka (Leatherwood and Reeves 1989).…”

“…1 Fig. 3 also incorporates published data from Baird (2005), Baird et al (1996), Ballance and Pitman (1998), Benham (1902), Brownell (1969), Caldwell et al (1966), Cardona-Maldonado and Mignucci-Giannoni (1999), Carvalho (1966Carvalho ( , 1967, Castello et al (1986), Chantrapornsyl et al (1991), de Blainville (1838), Dolar et al (1994), Eldredge (1991), Everitt et al (1979), Fritts et al (1983), Geise and Borobia (1987), Gunther et al (1955), Hale (1962), Harrison and Jamuth (1958), Hubbs (1951), Huckstadt and Antezana (2001), Hysmith et al (1976), Jefferson and Shiro (1997), Krefft (1865), Long (1991), Martins et al (1985), McAlpine et al (1997), Measures et al (2004), Munoz-Hincapié et al (1998), Nelson et al (1991, Omura and Takahashi (1981), Omura et al (1984), Osbourne and Ransom (1988), Plö n (2004), Roest (1970), Ross (1979), Sanino and Yanez (1997), Santos et al (2006), Schulte and Smith (1918), Secchi et al (1994)...…”