Synopsis on the Most Common Pathologies of Dolphins

Abstract

Dolphins are one of the most iconic species of the marine world. With their playful nature and high intelligence, dolphins have enthralled the hearts of people of all ages from all over the world. The worldwide distribution of dolphins through the diverse global aquatic environments has gifted them with global popularity compared to other aquatic animals in direct contact with the human communities. In the past few decades, deaths, injuries, toxicities, genetic disorders and overfishing were continuously increasing due to faulty anthropogenic activities in th marine environment. The increasing global threats to dolphins' populations have remarkably enhanced the public awareness about these threats and triggered scientific communities to configure reliable/effective solutions. Combating trans-species infectious diseases and development of reliable, safe and cheaper diagnostic as well as therapeutic tools for tissue alterations were the infrastructure of dolphins' veterinary research through the past few decades. However, the veterinary library is suffering from remarkable scarcity of comprehensive literatures about diseases/disorders affecting different body systems of marine mammals. Thus, we present the current review in trial to shed the light on the most common affections of dolphins as a model of the most critically impacted marine mammals.

First live sighting of an Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis) in the Yellow Sea, the northern-most record of the species range

“…Second, the dolphin exhibited an obviously deformed peduncle (S shape peduncle and additional bumps and cavities, Figure 2D), a condition that has rarely been reported in cetaceans (Bertulli et al ., 2015; Weir & Wang, 2016). These two old injuries, although potentially affecting the individual's fitness to some extent, probably were not the cause of the observed emaciation (Eissa & Abu-Seida, 2015).…”

A comprehensive overview of the most common skeletal deformities in fish

“…Various types of skeletal deformity were observed in three natural populations of wild‐caught mosquitofish ( Gambusia affinis ), with the most commonly affected regions being the hemal and pre‐hemal areas ( Annabi et al, 2015 ) . In other aquatic animals, Eissa and Abu‐Seida (2015) listed several miscellaneous skeletal deformities, such as hydrocephalus, a ‘double‐faced monster’, scoliosis, scoliokyphosis, lordosis and brachygnathia in dolphins.…”

Characterization of the cardiac phospholipidome of small cetaceans provides adaptational insight and a foundation for indirect population health screening

“…Cetacean health may be distressed by pollution, overfishing and bycatch incidents, abnormal climatic conditions implying potential shifts in prey availability, predators, and a number of infectious agents (viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic) and genetic disorders (Eissa & Abu‐Seida, 2015; Harris & Schmitt, 2014; Jepson et al, 2013; Murphy et al, 2015). Some of these conservation pressures are susceptible to eliciting acute or chronic physiological responses, which may be reflected both at the individual and the population level, influencing population parameters such as survival and reproduction rates (Murphy et al, 2015).…”